prosthetic knowledge

Facebook Demetricator 

A browser add-on that removes all quantifiable information in your Facebook page, taking away any social currency or values from sight.

Developed by Ben Grosser, he got in contact to tell me what it’s all about:

Under its influence, Facebook no longer foregrounds how many friends you have, or how much people like your status. Instead these numbers are stripped away, inviting you to try the system without these things, to enable a network society that isn’t dependent on quantification. 

More at his website:

The Facebook interface is filled with numbers. These numbers, or metrics, measure and present our social value and activity, enumerating friends, likes, comments, and more. Facebook Demetricator is a web browser addon that hides these metrics. No longer is the focus on how many friends you have or on how much they like your status, but on who they are and what they said. Friend counts disappear. ’16 people like this’ becomes ‘people like this’. Through changes like these, Demetricator invites Facebook’s users to try the system without the numbers, to see how their experience is changed by their absence. With this work I aim to disrupt the prescribed sociality these metrics produce, enabling a network society that isn’t dependent on quantification.

You can find out more and get the add-on at Ben’s site here