New paper / How Facebook changed what it means to ‘like’ / 28.01.2014

The “like” is the predominant gesture on social media, whether you’re sticking to Facebook or shifting to Instagram. It may even be the most common gesture among humans nowadays. Some of us probably “like” content from our online friends more often than we communicate with them in real life.

Depending on the context, a “like” may indicate sympathy, respect, encouragement, acknowledgement or recognition, all of which have a positive or at least neutral connotation. But while it is often immediately clear how a “like” is to be interpreted, at other times it is utterly obscure.

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