Is your video really liked? The number of “likes” in the didactic videos on Facebook as a digital trompe-l’oeil

Abstract

When using Facebook as a didactic resource, a way to obtain feedback can be to gather the number of “likes”. In this paper, we use the statistical data of the IV European Contest of Didactic Videos to analyse if the number of “likes” truly shows if a video is really liked. We also identify more reliable indicators to know about the acceptance of a video. The contest had two winners: (1) the video with the most “likes” from the public and (2) the most voted by the authors. During the week of video exposure, the 20 most “liked” videos reached 44,577 people and generated 3,796 “likes”. The number of “likes” may be conditioned by non-objective factors (friendship, own profit…) which invalidate it as an element of evaluation. The “permanence rate” (number of people who watched the video for 10 seconds or more compared to those who watched it for only 3 seconds) and the average viewing time can give a better idea of the acceptance of the video. The trompe l’oeil, in painting, is the representation of an object with such verisimilitude as to deceive the viewer concerning the material reality of the object. The number of “likes” is an illusory representation of the quality of a didactic video, that in reality is not true. It is a digital trompe l’oeil.