Social media companies for years tried to juice engagement with features like increased notification symbols, publicly-facing “like” counts or brighter colors to attract users to more images.
Some researchers now believe that those tactics have led to an over-use in social media, and may have had a negative overall impact on users’ health and wellbeing.
Twitter is also deploying a series of tests to motivate users to engage more positively and cut down on harassment and bullying. According to Buzzfeed News, in the next two weeks “Twitter will debut a series of experiments meant to calm us down — subtly motivating us to use the quote-tweet, reply, and retweet in nondestructive ways.”
The goal is to steer them away from dunking on people or spreading misinformation by retweeting too quickly.
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