It slows down our site and the increases the amount of time it takes for the site to load.
The animations on our sites only add a fraction of second to load times; and the amount of time was insignificant compared to how long it took when had a Facebook "Like"button.
So the next time you are wondering why it takes an article so long to load on other websites; just look for Facebook's Like Button.
I am sure you short-out all your problems of your site and I am looking forward to new updates.