Instagram Reintroduces Chronological Feed Option

[MacRumors]

Instagram today rolled out new Following and Favorites feed options, allowing users to sort their feeds to see content posted chronologically from the people they follow or content just from their favorite people.

The new Following option is a traditional chronological feed, and it displays the latest posts from the accounts that each Instagram user follows in reverse chronological order. Favorites shows the latest posts from a selected group of accounts that are followed, also in chronological order.

Favorites shows you the latest from accounts that you choose, like your best friends and favorite creators. In addition to this view, posts from accounts in Favorites will also show up higher in your home feed.

Following shows you posts from the people you follow. Both Favorites and Following will show you posts in chronological order, so you can quickly catch up on recent posts.

Instagram is rolling out the new chronological feeds as of today, and they can be accessed by tapping on the Instagram logo in the top left corner of the home page to choose either Following or Favorites.

Following incorporates all Instagram accounts that a person follows, while Favorites includes up to 50 accounts added to the user's favorites list. Posts from accounts marked as favorites will also show up higher in the standard home feed and will be marked with a star icon.

It's worth noting that the standard Home view, which is Instagram's feed ranked using a proprietary algorithm, is still the default option. Instagram told CNET that it believes that "people have a better experience on Instagram with a ranked feed," so the company does not plan to be "defaulting people into a chronological feed." Because the Home view is still the standard view, the new Following and Favorites feeds cannot replace it as the default.



Article Link: Instagram Reintroduces Chronological Feed Option

 

[DHagan4755]

I wish Instagram wasn't part of Facebook & their B.S.

 

[nfl46]

Nice, I remember this being an annoyance when I had IG. I no longer have it, but I'm sure tons welcome this feature back.

 

[xxray]

Sounds like Apple. Taking away a feature while marketing it as a feature that it was taken away, then adding it back and marketing that again.

 

[Macintosh TV]

People are going to quickly realize it's not ideal. You have to scroll through a lot of crap to find anything of interest without the algorithm.

 

[jcshas]

…and yet we’re still without a native iPad app. SMH.

 

[everlast3434]

instagram is evil! ?

 

[cdarlington1]

This is going to make it hard to discover new Instagram accounts. ?

You can still keep the default which changes nothing. These are options.

 

[TonyC28]

A groundbreaking idea!

 

[kiensoy]

Chronological made sense when you just followed a few friends. As the feed grows bigger and you start following famous photographers, celebrities, companies, meme accounts, etc. you would miss posts of your actual friends. I think the algorithm makes sense to show you stuff you wanna see first.

 

[nwcs]

If they would just let you remove (permanently) the suggested posts, posts similar to things they think you want to see, etc. from polluting the feed it would be great. While certainly not ideal, I do have to say that using Instagram as a web app (not the App Store app) removes a lot of this cruft and ad blocking works as well.

 

[ohaishawnn]

I don't have the option yet. May take some time.

 

[ArkSingularity]

I hope that it's easy to switch between. I definitely much prefer the chronological order, I prefer to see everything that my friends have posted (and not just what the algorithm considers popular). But I can see the advantage of the ranked option as well, it's certainly convenient for quick glances.

 

[H3LL5P4WN]

It’s not available to me yet either.

And it’s garbage that it’s not able to be set as default.

 

[Mizouse]

Good. Because the algorithm sometimes deprioritizes people you haven’t “interacted” with in some time.

Sometimes out of the blue I’d remember a page I used to see all the time and when I look them up, I see they’ve been active. It’s just IG decided not to show me their activity.

 

[TheSkywalker77]

Still have yet to get the update for my account, but thank god for them adding it back.

 

[orbital~debris]

It won’t last.

They’ll find some way to tweak it and make it subversive to users’ preferences.

 

[H3LL5P4WN]

instagram is evil! ?

It’s been evil since FB bought it and let the green bubbles in.

 

[jbc25]

I wonder if it's a coincidence that this comes after John Gruber's ranting about this very thing on the last episode of his podcast.

 

[The Clark]

If I had any respect for myself or my time I would delete all socials and start living a better life, but alas.

 

[jbc25]

Chronological made sense when you just followed a few friends. As the feed grows bigger and you start following famous photographers, celebrities, companies, meme accounts, etc. you would miss posts of your actual friends. I think the algorithm makes sense to show you stuff you wanna see first.

I agree. This is the thing that all pro-chronological folks seem to either not understand or choose to ignore. If you're the type of person who follows hundreds of accounts and treats the feed like an open firehose that you take sips from, rather than a book read from start to finish, the algo feed is better because it surfaces more of the posts that you want to see. If you're just following a small number of friends and you want the feed to have an "end", then yes, chronological is preferable for that. It all depends on how you use the platform. I'm glad they're bringing back both options.

 

[ericschmerick]

I don't have that options showing yet - and instagram says it was updated today. I guess they are staggering the rollout (?)

 

[ThirtyWon]

It’s not available to me yet either.

And it’s garbage that it’s not able to be set as default.

Agreed.

Similar to Facebook itself, where there is no way to have 'all comments' as default. It is always 'Most Relevant' or 'Top Comments'. This is a major annoyance and one of the reasons I stopped using Facebook.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

People are going to quickly realize it's not ideal. You have to scroll through a lot of crap to find anything of interest without the algorithm.

What's not ideal is after posts from people I follow, instead of topics that I do constantly "like" I wind up with nothing but kittens and other crap. Why kittens? Each kitten pic says I liked a post from the user (never seen or liked anything from these kitten loving users before). Complete BS that IG says I liked a post from a user I've never, ever liked or even seen. Same for endless food and travel posts. It's ridiculous. If their algorithm worked, they'd be showing me things related to what I actually DO like.

Another time, my feed was every 3rd post was a JEEP picture. I've never liked anything JEEP, in real life or on IG. Yet literally every 3rd post was a tricked-out JEEP picture.

Their algorithm sucks.

It's frustrating.

I'm up-to-date on the IG app an no choice for me to choose from. Maybe not on App Store yet?

 

[Mizouse]

Agreed.

Similar to Facebook itself, where there is no way to have 'all comments' as default. It is always 'Most Relevant' or 'Top Comments'. This is a major annoyance and one of the reasons I stopped using Facebook.

I hate that part about FB comments as well. It’s annoying when you try to read replies to people’s comments and it doesn’t show the replies until you press “all comments”