Users could soon hide ‘like’ counts on Instagram and Facebook

The tiny red hearts that appear under Instagram photos of kids, kittens and sandwiches can be a source of stress for many users, an insidious way of measuring self-worth and popularity.

Now Facebook says it’s going to test out — again — an option for users to hide those “like” counts to see if it can reduce the pressure of being on social media. Instagram, which Facebook owns, will soon allow a small group of random users to decide whether or not they want to see the number of likes their posts and those of others receive. The social media giant says it’s also exploring the feature for Facebook. Comments will still be available for people who chose to hide likes — they just won’t see whether it was 2, 20 or 20,000 people who liked their posts.