The meanings of Facebook "like"

Abstract

This paper explores the meanings of Facebook “Like” from the perspectives of Hong Kong active Facebook users and their actual practices on Facebook “Liking”. It first aims to analyze what meanings Facebook users offer when they click a “Like” as a response on Facebook, before subsequently studying the motivations for them to “Like” things, e.g., actions, status updates or images, on Facebook. Of particular interest to my present study is Facebook users’ change of behaviours in clicking a “Like” button as a result of the introduction of the “Reaction” buttons in 2016. Data were collected by means of in-depth focused interviews of four active Facebook users in Hong Kong. By using the top-down/bottom-up approach of data analysis, the study aims to answer the following research questions: 1. What are the Facebook users’ liking practices? 2. What reasons do Facebook users provide for clicking the Facebook “Like” button? 3. With the introduction of the Reaction buttons which provide users with a range of emoticons in addition to the option of pressing “Like”, how have Facebook users’ views on clicking a “Like” button changed?

Results show that Facebook users’ reasons and motivations for clicking a “Like” on Facebook adhere to previous research findings. The most prominent ones are: 1) clicking “Like” for genuine enjoyment of the content, 2) using “Like” to perform facework and 3) as a tool to social bonding. Despite the fact that the “Reaction” buttons are designed to give more specific representation of the emotions, users prefer to use the “Like” button as a response as it is deemed to carry a more neutral meaning.