[jlukecarlson]

Yes definitely. Succinctly, its converted intangible social norms into concrete numbers that people can compare and fret over.

Before, popularity could be described as a general sense of "people enjoy being around you". You could conceivably say that one person was more popular than another but that would be pretty subjective. Now it can be quantified directly in terms of number of followers or likes on a message.

I doubt people used to worry so much about whether they had 97 acquaintances who valued what they say vs having 102. Now those are very real worries for some people who regularly engage with social media and web forums.