Instagram To Make Feeds More Chronological

Instagram, the one social media app that’s so far been left out of the public relations nightmares that have bedeviled the likes of Facebook and Snapchat, is trying to keep the people happy: The app announced today that it would be reverting back to a more chronological feed and introducing a “new posts” button that lets you refresh news posts when you want to.

The app officially switched from a purely chronological feed to an algorithmic one in 2016, to the chagrin of users who started seeing four-day-old posts mixed in with ones from the last few hours and the last few minutes. While Instagram isn’t entirely going back to the purity of its old ways, it is testing a “new posts” feature that “lets you choose when you want to refresh, rather than it happening automatically,” according to the app’s press blog. “Tap the button and you’ll be taken to new posts at the top of feed—don’t tap and you’ll stay where you are. We hope this makes browsing Instagram much more enjoyable.”

Instagram is owned by Facebook. As the #DeleteFacebook hashtag trends, it’s possible that Instagram is trying to make sure that it remains out of the Cambridge Analytica fallout. It has also made a more nebulous announcement about the general way that Instagram decides what posts you see and when: “Based on your feedback, we’re also making changes to ensure that newer posts are more likely to appear first in feed [sic]. With these changes, your feed will feel more fresh [sic], and you won’t miss the moments you care about. So if your best friend shares a selfie from her vacation, it will be waiting for you when you wake up.”
[vogue]

March 23, 2018