I would argue that they don't - you only think they do, and that's the real issue. Not judging as I've been in that mindset myself. I'm a pretty self-concious person but I truly don't think people our age care about likes. You mentioned being mid-20's which I also mentioned in my post in case this issue came up. I understand that children and teenagers care about likes (and I've seen articles with evidence to back that up) but I think by our age that's gone (or didn't ever really exist that strongly as we were too old by the time social media went super mainstream).

Edit: Thought you were the parent who mentioned they were mid-20's, just realised you are not the parent. Curious what age you are (roughly even, if you don't mind) as I think that has a lot of bearing on this conversation.