Photo-sharing platform Instagram has recently announced that it plans to update its algorithms, which will change the way content is displayed within the news feed.
Instagram first changed the way in which content appeared in its news feeds two years ago, when the company decided to remove its timeline-style feed of posts in chronological order in favour of a feed that showed what the company thought were the posts from the most important connections to the user.
This style of news feed also appeared across many social media platforms including both Facebook and Twitter, and at the time, this style of showing content did not go down too well with users who had become accustomed to the chronological timelines across most social media platforms. However, despite users voicing their discontent, these social sites have stood firm and have not changed their stance.
Now, Instagram has announced that it plans to change this, but not because of users asking the company to revert to the old ways. The reason for the change is because of feedback the company received about the feeds automatically refreshing and sending users back to the top of the feed without any warning at all. This will give users more control over when the feed is refreshed, and will mean they won’t see the page jumping from one post to another.
As a result of this change, Instagram’s algorithms will alter so that newer posts are more likely to appear towards the top of the feed. This will give it some sort of chronological order, without reverting back to a time-based feed. The company has said that the goal of this change is to ensure that the feed would “feel more fresh” by showing users more recent posts at the top where they won’t be missed. This will be combined with elements of the current feed, where posts by some of the user’s best friends and most interacted accounts also appear first.
These changes were announced in a blog post on Thursday, with the post concluding in a way that suggests that more updates could be on the way, as Instagram says it will share more improvements it is making to its feeds. As cryptic as this appears, it does suggest that the site has some more tricks up its sleeve to meet its objective of making the network the best place for users to connect with their friends and acquaintances, as well as explore the topics that interest them most.
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