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LikeBlockr App mirrors Instagram without the likes and follows

In social media, where your personal value is determined by your reach and your "likes," an Alberta man has created the world's first iPhone app that actually blocks the "likes" others add to posts on Instagram.

Like many of us, one of the first things Dan Zimmerman does each morning is roll over and check his phone.

At first, these daily perusals were simply a random scrolling through his social media feeds, a like here, a comment there.

But then it turned into something a little more insidious.

The daily barrage of celebrity Facebook and Instagram feeds accompanied by sometimes tens of thousands of likes began to wear down the artist from the Sherwood Park, Alta.

"And then you start to maybe question your self worth," Zimmerman said. "At least I did."

In the physical world, people have made judgements about the worth of others for a long time, he said, whether it's looking at someone's car, job title or neighbourhood.

"But never before has anything been so public and never before have we been able to use something that's so quantitative," he said.

"You have these numbers now where you can literally subtract your worth by measuring your number versus another person's number."

Becoming 'Insta-famous'

While higher numbers equate to fame, fortune, infamy and product endorsements for some, the vast majority are left with considerably more modest figures.

For Zimmerman, and likely others, that dichotomy raises questions of worth and importance.

"You're like 'Maybe I could do that as a job' and you start to dream and bit, and then you wonder how you can become insta-famous," he said.

"For me at least, I was going to places that I never planned on going — but I was becoming more and more concerned about what other people thought of me and I was just seeking external validation more and more."

That's when Zimmerman decided to create LikeBlockr.

"Basically, you log in through Instagram just as you normally would … except you don't see any likes and you don't see any follower counts either."

Should temptation prove too great, Zimmerman says you can always sign back into the main Instagram app to check your stats.

"But if you want some respite from that, you can definitely use LikeBlockr and just enjoy content."

The app does elicit strong reactions from people, he says. Some embrace it fully, while others say it defeats the purpose of social media.

Zimmerman himself is still coming to terms with how fully he should embrace the app's philosophy, dipping further into an existential spiral while pondering whether he should even be promoting its existence.

He also questions whether he's cheating whenever he checks how many have downloaded his app.

"I often wonder if download numbers are comparable to likes. If I have more download numbers, does that mean I've made a better app?"

About 6,500 people have downloaded LikeBlockr since he first made it available in January.