From the University of Alaska to Florida State, the new social media site LikeALittle is rapidly growing on college campuses across America. The site gives college students the ability to anonymously flirt with each other on the web. The site, which was started in October 2010 by three Stanford University students, hit Saint Louis University in early February and has remained one of the top five campuses using the site since its establishment.
“I thought it was a really cool idea for social media,” freshman Olivia White, who started the LikeALittle’s page at the University, said. “It was a new outlet to communicate, but this way it’s anonymous. You can say what you feel with out other people knowing who you are.”
Students who post a message on LikeALittle are instructed to describe the person whom they are interested and to give a location where they have seen them. If another person comments on the post, they are assigned random names of fruits and vegetables, like “Blackberry” and “Eggplant,” to ensure anonymity.
“Myself and my two friends noticed that it was difficult to communicate with people around them, whether it be a cute person in a café or a student around campus,” said Evan Reas, one of the founders of the website.
Reas said he knows from experience that it can be awkward to make the first move when meeting people, for he was often too shy to say hello to people on his campus.
“We decided to try to come up with interesting ways to connect people in the world around them, and the rest is history,” Reas said. For SLU, LikeALittle’s history is just beginning.
“I think it’s creepy, but kind of fun,” freshman Anne Marie Fleming said. “You wonder, ‘Is this person talking about me?’”
LikeALittle may even be making an international impact on the University community.
“Some of my friends abroad look at it just to feel connected back home,” sophomore Molly Allen said. “It is a nice way to give a complement, even across the world.”
However, students are encouraged to be careful when posting on the web site.
“In the case of sites like LikeALittle, you have pseudo-anonymity,” Amber Hinsley, an assistant professor in the Department of Communications, said. “Something that was once private is now public.”
Hinsley said that because of the short, fragmented posts, there is not enough time to build the foundations of meaningful personal relationships.
“Can you build a meaningful relationship with another person through a series of tweets, status updates and Facebook chats?” Hinsley said. “It depends on how you personally define ‘meaningful’.”
Hinsley said people take their interaction online to seek approval in relationships they feel they cannot get in real life.
Hinsley said she wonders if the site is appealing to students because rejection may be less painful through wireless Internet connections.
However, not all students take the site seriously. Freshman, Felix Galvez says that he thinks of LikeALittle as a joke.
“People write things about their friends just to get a laugh out of it,” Galvez said. “Since some people are shy, they use it the way it’s supposed to be used. But that’s hard now that most people don’t take it seriously.”
However, some college students have had romantic success through the networking website. A student at Grand Valley State University wrote on the site, “I saw a post a girl had written that described me to the letter, and it happened to have been in the location she specified hours earlier. I messaged her, and we hung out later that week. I don’t know yet how this will turn out, but thanks Like-a-Little!”
The LikeALittle phenomenon, according to White, should continue for some time at the University.
“If it improves and changes as Facebook has by adding new features, I think LikeALittle could become a major social media outlet,” White said.
The discussion on the consequences of LikeALittle remains at the University as it grows in popularity. “It’s really just another way for people to avoid face to face contact,” Flemming said. “If you like someone, you should just go talk to them.”
