About time! Instagram will finally bring back the chronological feed in 2022 – six years after it was ditched in favour of an algorithmically sorted feed
- Until 2016, Instagram’s feed was chronological, with the newest at the top
- It then introduced an algorithmically sorted feed, much to users’ dismay
- The algorithm takes factors into account including how likely you are to interact
- Now, Adam Mosseri, Instagram head, has confirmed that the option for a chronological feed will be reintroduced in the first quarter of 2022
Since it was ditched in favour of an algorithmically sorted feed in 2016, a chronological feed has been one of the most highly requested features on Instagram.
Now, Instagram has finally announced the news that we’ve all been waiting for – the chronological feed is finally making a return.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri confirmed the news during a hearing before a Senate subcommittee yesterday, saying that the platform is ‘actively working on’ it.
The timeline for the launch remains unclear, although Mosseri said it is likely to be ‘in the first quarter of next year.’
Instagram has finally announced the news that we’ve all been waiting for – the chronological feed is finally making a return
Instagram followed on from Mr Mosseri’s hearing with further information on Twitter this morning
Instagram followed on from Mr Mosseri’s hearing with further information on Twitter this morning.
‘We want people to have meaningful control over their experience,’ it explained.
‘We’ve been experimenting with Favourites, a way for you to decide whose posts you want to see higher up, and we’re working on another option to see posts from people you follow in chronological order.’
Instagram added that the chronological feed won’t be the same one that we knew back in 2015.
‘We want to be clear that we’re creating new options — providing people with more choices so they can decide what works best for them — not switching everyone back to a chronological feed,’ it added.
‘You can expect more on this early next year!’
Until 2016, Instagram users’ feeds were sorted chronologically, with the most recent posts appearing first.
However, for the past five years the order of posts in the feed has been determined by an algorithm.
In a blog explaining the reasoning behind this change, Mr Mosseri said: ‘By 2016, people were missing 70% of all their posts in Feed, including almost half of posts from their close connections.
‘So we developed and introduced a Feed that ranked posts based on what you care about most.’
The news has been welcomed by many users on Twitter, with one joking that our ‘prayers have been answered’
The algorithm takes several factors into account, including how likely you are to interact with it with likes or comments.
‘In Feed, the five interactions we look at most closely are how likely you are to spend a few seconds on a post, comment on it, like it, save it, and tap on the profile photo,’ Mr Mosseri explained.
‘The more likely you are to take an action, and the more heavily we weigh that action, the higher up you’ll see the post. We add and remove signals and predictions over time, working to get better at surfacing what you’re interested in.’
While Instagram claims that the algorithm helps to ensure users don’t miss posts, many users have been calling for the return of the chronological feed.
The news has been welcomed by many users on Twitter, with one joking that our ‘prayers have been answered.’
Another user wrote: ‘Instagram finally bringing back chronological order! 2022 looking real nice already.’
And one added: ‘instagram is letting us put our feeds in chronological order again, nature is healing.’