The influence of liking and disliking on creative expression in digital photos

Since the Like-button was introduced in 2009 by Facebook, its use increased rapidly. Liking became an important part of our daily routines on the internet since we are able to like almost any creative expression, such as photos and videos. Little is known about the effects of liking (and disliking) on these creative expressions. This paper investigates how the (dis)liking feature influences creativity. We conducted an experiment with a photo-application for mobile phones and provided different combinations of liking and disliking to two research groups and a control group. Our findings suggest that providing a liking feature is beneficial to creativity in terms of the production of creative content and results in higher amounts of photos. Providing a disliking feature as well is beneficial to creativity in terms of quality and results in higher rates for the photos.