Instagram boss Adam Mosseri, answering some questions from his followers, confirmed that the company intends to reintroduce chronological order in the feed (i.e. the space in which each user sees the new posts of the accounts that follows), as he had announced. Wednesday during a US Senate hearing.
At the moment, the way in which new posts are displayed in the feed does not respect the chronological order in which they are published, as it did until a few years ago, but it depends on the way in which the Instagram algorithm interprets preferences and interests of each user, based on his behavior on the platform: the contents that the algorithm identifies as “most interesting” for the user are shown first, which according to some observers has problematic implications for a healthy use of the contents of the platform.
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Mosseri explained that the return of chronological order in the feed will be tested in two versions. One of the versions will allow the user to choose their favorite accounts and show new posts from those accounts at the top of the feed, in chronological order. The second version will show all new posts from all accounts that the user follows, in chronological order. However, Mosseri did not explain how the “suggested posts” that have been appearing in users' feeds for some time will fit into all this.
Restoring the historical feed is one of the most requested changes by users of the platform in recent years. Mosseri, however, clarified that users will not be forced to return to the chronological version of the feed, and that Instagram does not intend to abandon the version determined by the algorithm entirely, because it believes that it helps “to provide people with the content they are most interested in” . Users will then have the possibility to choose whether to view the feed in chronological order or not, as happens on Twitter.
The changes should be introduced starting from the beginning of 2022.
