The Steemit View Counter

I like votes, bot votes or manually curated votes, they are all welcome and I appreciate them all. However, we now have a view counter and it is interesting that the proportion of views is often significantly lower than the number of votes. That got me thinking. In my own haste to help distribute Steem into the hands of as many people producing quality content as possible, I was forced to cut some corners when voting. If I had already liked an account's posts, i might upvote without reading the post, if the post was a piece of art or photo, i might not open the post to see it in all it's glory. There are many other examples.

Then I thought, yes people want votes, but they also want to know their material has been viewed and they want engagement even more than that. Perhaps views and engagement are more important or at least as important as votes and rewards to many people. Anyway, I decided to try harder to view much more of what I was voting for and I discovered something amazing. Rather than just open the post and close it, which may be suitable for art or photos, I couldn't help but to start reading more. I rediscovered the joy of learning knew and interesting information and the rewards of increasing my engagement.

View are incredibly valuable to a social media platform. If they are honest, then they are a powerful indicator of engagement, a moral booster for content creators, a powerful indicator of content value and a verification mechanism for feedback from the community. So, as there's something in it for everyone, I hope you will all try to find the time to view as much content as you can. I appreciate that time and priorities are a factor and that we can all only do our best at any given time. For me it's an adjustment to my perspective and an awareness that viewing is important to other Steemians and to me.

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Happy Steeming