Chapter 10 Exercises: Social Rewards and the Approval Economy — Why Likes Feel Like Love

These 35 exercises are organized across five tiers of increasing depth and engagement. Tier 1 exercises build foundational comprehension. Tier 5 exercises require original research, extended reflection, or creative production.

Tier 1: Comprehension and Recall

These exercises confirm understanding of key concepts from the chapter. They are appropriate for individual review or low-stakes assessment.

Exercise 1.1 — The Evolutionary Foundation Chapter 10 argues that the power of social approval on the human brain is not a product of digital technology but of evolutionary history. Explain this argument in your own words: Why does social acceptance carry neurological weight? What was the evolutionary logic that made social approval feel like a survival signal rather than a mere preference?

Exercise 1.2 — Social Pain and Physical Pain Summarize the Eisenberger and Lieberman (2003) research on social rejection and physical pain. What brain region is involved? What does "the same circuits" actually mean neurologically — what does the region do in the physical pain context that makes the overlap significant? Why does this finding matter for understanding why "getting 3 likes when you expected 30" feels like more than just disappointment?

Exercise 1.3 — The Like Button's History Reconstruct the key events in the like button's history as described in Chapter 10: Who proposed it and when? What was it initially called? When did it launch? How did it spread to other platforms? What have its creators said about it in retrospect? Organize this as a brief timeline with each entry carrying a date and a significance note.

Exercise 1.4 — What Quantification Changes The chapter argues that "quantification" of social approval changes something fundamental compared to qualitative social feedback. Explain what specifically changes. In what ways is a numerical like count different from simply knowing that people appreciated your contribution? Use Festinger's social comparison theory as part of your answer.

Exercise 1.5 — Variable Social Reward Explain how variable reinforcement mechanics (from Chapters 7-8) apply specifically to social media likes. What is the "variable" element? What is the "reinforcement"? How does the uncertainty of how a post will perform function as a behavioral mechanism? What does research suggest about how uncertain social approval compares to certain approval in terms of motivation and neurological response?

Exercise 1.6 — The Comment Hierarchy Chapter 10 describes a hierarchy of social reward signals, with comments occupying a higher position than likes. Explain why. What makes a comment a stronger reward signal than a like? What did Meshi et al.'s research find about the neural response to comments versus likes? How do platform notification and display systems reflect this hierarchy?

Exercise 1.7 — The 2019 Instagram Experiment Summarize Instagram's 2019 experiment with hidden like counts. What countries were involved? What was the stated rationale? What did the research find? Why did the experiment effectively end with a partial reversal? What does the episode reveal about the relationship between the business model and the social reward system?

Tier 2: Application and Analysis

These exercises ask students to apply chapter concepts to new situations or analyze examples not explicitly discussed in the chapter.

Exercise 2.1 — Your Own Approval Map Without judgment, honestly map your own relationship with social media approval: Do you check how posts perform after sharing? Do you notice specific emotional responses to high or low engagement? Have you ever not posted something because you thought it wouldn't perform well? Have you ever felt a physical sensation in response to unexpected likes or comments? Write 200 words describing your personal approval map as accurately as you can.

Exercise 2.2 — Platform Comparison Compare the social reward systems of two different platforms you use (or are familiar with). How does each implement likes/approval signals? What differences exist in how they display counts, what kinds of approval signals exist, and how they notify users of engagement? What do these design differences suggest about how each platform conceptualizes social reward's role in engagement?

Exercise 2.3 — The Comparison Environment The chapter describes Instagram as a "comparison machine" that presents users with a non-representative sample of social reality. For 30 minutes, scroll through one social media feed while making notes: How many posts do you see with very high engagement? How do those posts make you feel relative to your own content or life? What does the feed look like if you think about it as an average of human experience versus a curated selection? What does this reveal about the comparison environment you're actually in?

Exercise 2.4 — Content Self-Censorship Maya chose not to post two things she genuinely liked because she feared the approval verdict. Reflect on your own content decisions: Can you identify instances when you chose not to share something (a photo, a thought, an opinion) because you anticipated a low approval response? Can you identify instances when you shaped what you shared to fit what you expected would be approved? What does this pattern suggest about how the approval economy shapes authentic self-expression?

Exercise 2.5 — The Adolescent Amplification Chapter 10 describes research showing that adolescents' social reward circuits are hyperresponsive compared to adults — that the developmental period amplifies the effects described in the chapter. Apply this finding to evaluate the ethics of social media design targeted at teenagers. If platforms know (through their own research) that their users' brains are developmentally maximized for social approval sensitivity, what ethical obligations follow?

Exercise 2.6 — Comment Quality Analysis Look at the comments on five recent posts on any social media platform. Categorize them by type: simple approval ("great!" "love this"), substantive engagement (a real thought or question), social maintenance (a friend checking in), critical response, and other. What is the distribution? What does it suggest about how comments actually function as social signals on the platform you examined?

Exercise 2.7 — Redesigning Approval If you were designing a social media platform that wanted to deliver social approval in a way that was genuinely good for users, what would you change about the like system? Consider: would you have one at all? Would you make counts private? Would you change what it means to "like" something? Would you introduce other feedback mechanisms? What trade-offs does each change involve?

Tier 3: Synthesis and Evaluation

These exercises ask students to integrate multiple concepts, evaluate competing arguments, or construct original analyses.

Exercise 3.1 — The "Platforms Didn't Invent It" Argument Chapter 10 concludes that "platforms didn't invent social approval needs — they digitized, quantified, and weaponized them." Evaluate this claim. What is the argument for thinking that what platforms do is merely a new delivery mechanism for an ancient human need? What is the argument that the specific forms platforms give social approval create genuinely new dynamics — not just amplification of existing ones? Which position do you find more convincing, and why?

Exercise 3.2 — Individual Difference and Vulnerability Not everyone is equally affected by the social reward dynamics described in Chapter 10. What individual characteristics — personality traits, attachment styles, social anxieties, past experiences — might make some users more vulnerable than others to the approval economy's psychological effects? How should this individual variation factor into our evaluation of the harms of the approval economy? Does the fact that some users are not significantly affected mitigate the concern about those who are?

Exercise 3.3 — The Meta Documents The internal Meta (Facebook/Instagram) research documents that became public in 2021 — the "Facebook Papers" — included findings that Instagram made body image issues worse for a significant percentage of teenage girls. Meta continued operating Instagram with minimal changes after learning this. Evaluate the ethics of this decision using at least two ethical frameworks. What information did Meta have, when, and what actions were available to them? What does their response reveal about the relationship between internal knowledge and public platform design?

Exercise 3.4 — Social Comparison Theory Applied Festinger's social comparison theory (1954) was developed before the internet, social media, or quantified online approval. Apply his framework carefully to the modern Instagram context. Which aspects of social comparison theory map cleanly onto social media behavior? Which aspects of the modern context did Festinger's theory not anticipate and cannot easily account for? What modifications to the theory might be needed?

Exercise 3.5 — The Hidden Like Count Evidence Instagram's 2019 experiment with hidden like counts produced research showing mixed effects on social comparison and wellbeing. Evaluate the quality of this evidence: What is methodologically strong about studying a real platform change at scale? What are the limitations? If you were designing a follow-up study to better understand whether visible like counts cause harm, what would you study and how? What would you need to find to be confident about the causal story?

Exercise 3.6 — The Creator Economy's Structural Trap Chapter 10 describes how for professional creators, the approval economy becomes an economic reality — engagement metrics directly determine income. Analyze this dynamic using the concept of "structural constraint." In what sense does the creator have autonomy over their content decisions? In what sense are they structurally constrained by the approval economy? Does the existence of economic dependence change the ethical analysis of the approval economy's effects?

Exercise 3.7 — Connecting Chapter 9 and Chapter 10 Chapter 9 examined notifications as behavioral triggers. Chapter 10 examines social rewards as the reinforcers those triggers promise. Write a 300-word synthesis connecting these two chapters: How does the Pavlovian conditioning system of Chapter 9 depend on the social reward system of Chapter 10? How do the specific features of social approval (variability, quantification, public visibility) enhance the conditioning effects of notifications? What would be different about the notification system if the social rewards it promised were less potent?

Tier 4: Research and Original Investigation

These exercises require independent research, extended engagement with primary sources, or systematic data collection.

Exercise 4.1 — Post Performance Study Over two weeks, keep a systematic record of every piece of content you post on social media: what you posted, why you chose to post it, what your prediction was for its performance, what its actual performance was, and how you felt when you saw the result. After two weeks, write a 500-word analysis: How accurate were your predictions? Were your emotional responses to under- and over-performance proportionate? What patterns did you notice in your posting decisions that might be traced to the approval economy?

Exercise 4.2 — Primary Source: The Facebook Papers Read at least two primary documents from the Facebook Papers (internal Meta research documents made public in October 2021, available through the documents released to the US Congress). Write a 400-word summary of what the internal research showed about Instagram's effects on teenage users, and a 200-word reflection on the gap between what the company knew and what it communicated publicly.

Exercise 4.3 — The Neuroscience of Social Reward Find and read at least two primary research papers on the neuroscience of social reward in the context of social media (Meshi's work is a good starting point; Dar Meshi, Cyril Morawetz, and Hauke Heekeren published relevant work in 2013 in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience; Sarah Fardouly and colleagues have published relevant work on social comparison and Instagram). Write a 500-word critical summary of what the neuroscience actually shows versus what is sometimes overclaimed in popular accounts of "dopamine" and social media.

Exercise 4.4 — Historical Analysis: The Evolution of Digital Approval Research the history of online social approval mechanisms from the earliest rating systems (eBay feedback, 1996; Amazon reviews, 1995; Slashdot karma, 1997) through the development of the Facebook like button to the present. Identify at least five significant moments in the history of quantified digital social approval. What trends do you observe? Has quantified approval become more or less prominent over time? What drove the changes?

Exercise 4.5 — Creator Economy Research Research the creator economy in depth: find three creators across different platforms (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, or others) who have publicly spoken about their relationship with engagement metrics and the approval economy. What do they describe? What specific psychological dynamics do they report? How do their descriptions map onto the mechanisms described in Chapter 10? Write a 500-word comparative analysis.

Tier 5: Creative, Reflective, and Extended Work

These exercises require extended original writing, design work, or deep personal reflection.

Exercise 5.1 — Personal Approval History Write a 600-word personal essay examining your own history with social approval, both online and offline. How did the desire for social approval function in your life before social media? How has social media changed your experience of seeking and receiving approval? Have you noticed changes in how you relate to your own content — your opinions, creative work, self-presentation — that you would attribute to the approval economy? Be honest and specific.

Exercise 5.2 — Designing the Anti-Instagram Design, in detail, a social content-sharing platform that was explicitly designed to support genuine human connection and creative expression without exploiting the social approval neural circuits described in Chapter 10. What feedback mechanisms would it use? What would it not have? How would it handle the challenge that people genuinely want to share things and receive responses? Write a 500-word design document and a 200-word honest assessment of the trade-offs and difficulties.

Exercise 5.3 — Letter from a Creator Write a 600-word letter in the voice of a professional social media creator who has been monetizing their platform presence for three years. The letter is addressed to their 15-year-old self and explains honestly what the approval economy has done to their relationship with their own creative work, their self-esteem, and their relationship with their audience. The letter should be psychologically specific, drawing on the mechanisms described in Chapter 10.

Exercise 5.4 — Regulatory Proposal Write a 700-word policy proposal recommending specific regulatory interventions in social media platform design related to the social reward dynamics described in Chapter 10. Your proposal should address: what specifically should be required, what should be prohibited, what should be disclosed, and what the evidence base for each recommendation is. Anticipate and respond to the strongest objection to your proposals.

Exercise 5.5 — The Wellbeing Redesign You are a product designer at Instagram with the mandate to redesign the social reward system to reduce harm to adolescent users without destroying the platform's core value proposition. Conduct a design sprint: describe what you would change (specific design decisions), the evidence base for each change, the predicted effect on engagement metrics, and how you would test whether the changes achieved their wellbeing goals. Write this as a 600-word internal design brief.

Exercise 5.6 — Comparative Media Analysis Compare how social approval was expressed and experienced in two earlier media forms (e.g., letters, published books, radio call-in shows, newspaper letters sections) versus on contemporary social media. What was similar about the human need involved? What was categorically different about the feedback mechanism? What does the comparison suggest about what is genuinely new about quantified digital social approval — and what is the latest expression of something very old?

Exercise 5.7 — The Parent's Conversation Write a 500-word dialogue between a parent and a 16-year-old in which they discuss the social reward dynamics of Instagram. The parent has read Chapter 10 and wants to have a genuinely useful conversation — not a lecture. The teenager is thoughtful and honest but initially somewhat defensive. The conversation should end with both having a more nuanced mutual understanding. The goal is not to produce a didactic lesson but a realistic, warm, and ultimately useful exchange that neither collapses into preachiness nor avoids the difficult substance.