In the month of June 2016, Instagram rolled out an update which changed the way users experienced the app. Instagram switched from a strictly chronological oldest-to-newest news feed to a new to algorithm-based feed. Instagram stated the reason for the update was to help users discover lost posts.
“You may be surprised to learn that people miss on average 70 percent of their feeds. As Instagram has grown, it’s become harder to keep up with all the photos and videos people share. This means you often don’t see the posts you might care about the most. To improve your experience, your feed will soon be ordered to show the moments we believe you will care about the most.”
That sounds like a good enough reason to roll out an algorithm feed.
But honestly, I actually hate it. It’s almost been a year and I really miss the chronological feed on my Instagram timeline.
I’m never a fan when app developers roll out updates which they think benefits the user. I understand the logic of showing me posts based on algorithms but could you at least have given me an option to use it to activate it?
Whenever I log into into my Facebook account, the first thing I do is switch from “Top Stories” to “Recent Stories“. I’m not too interested in what Facebook thinks I like with the top stories on my feed. I know what I want. I want the newest stuff from New to Old. I will scroll down and find stuff that I want to look at.
But with Instagram, they didn’t bother to give users that option. It’s weird to scroll through my feed and see that the top post from someone I follow was from 4 hours ago. Besides, how does Instagram even know that I like seeing post from this person? Yeah yeah, I know. It’s the algorithm.
I’m thankful Twitter hasn’t decided to go that route even though they have floated out the idea. I actually like that Twitter gives you the “While You Were Away” feature which shows me tweets that I actually find interesting. But if Twitter ever decides to do that to my ENTIRE timeline, I would be upset.
Just Give Me Options
That’s all users want. We want options in our apps. Whether it’s tweets we see on our timeline or stories that come into our Facebook feed, we users want options to see what we want, algorithms be damned.
Is Instagram’s algorithm really going to give me the posts it thinks I want to see? I’m not very charitable with the “Like” button on my Instagram. So if I happen to like something once, does that mean Instagram thinks I actually care as much about that follower and push their stuff to me all the time?
Just put in an option to switch from Recent to Top posts just like Facebook does. Believe me, I don’t care that an ex girlfriend that I still follow on my Instagram posts a picture of her wedding day. I would probably skip that whole day not to see those pictures but Instagram would probably show me those posts because it thinks because I favorited a bunch of her pictures in the past, it means that’s what I want to see. Which is not the case.*
Well, you might say that I could just “unfollow”. But I want to option to scroll post that if I want and not have that be the first thing front and center.
*(Disclaimer: I have ex-girlfriends on Instagram and we’re still good friends. This in case they’re reading this. Hi!)
Dear Instagram…
Please bring back the chronological feed. Or better yet, just put in an option to see my recent posts. It hasn’t been fun ever since you implemented it.
Besides, you’re killing it right now with your other features. The “Stories” feature you stole copied from Snapchat is a huge hit. Even I use it on occasion for promoting this website. I’m sure your new face filter update will also be a smashing success.
So how about it? Bring back my chronological feed? Thanks. That would be great.
