Two major Instagram feed changes: new posts will show up first & no auto refresh

Instagram is making some important changes to its feed, the company announced today.

A pair of pretty important updates are currently in tow. Firstly, newer posts are now more likely to appear first in your feed versus the previous feed sorting based on relevancy. And secondly, Instagram is turning off the ability for your feed to automatically refresh itself.

The latter improvement is much appreciated because it’s pretty annoying when your feed automatically refreshes and bumps you to the top. There’s now a “New Posts” button that lets you choose when you want to refresh the feed rather than it happening automatically: just hit the button when you’d like to see any new posts at the top of your feed.

Instagram says it’s making these changes based on user feedback.

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“With these changes, your feed will feel more fresh, and you won’t miss the moments you care about,” is how the company is pitching the updated feed algorithm. “So if your best friend shares a selfie from her vacation in Australia, it will be waiting for you when you wake up.”

Hopefully, this change to the way the feed works means that Instagram will focus on posts from the people you follow while de-emphasizing those from the accounts it thinks you might like based on your activity. Feed sorting based on relevancy has never worked quite well: it’s better to ensure that the posts you see in the feed are timely than supposedly relevant.

The company has pledged to share additional information about the improvements it’s making to the feed. I wish Instagram gave us multiple feed sorting options.

Also, wouldn’t it be better if they brought back the original chronological ordering?

Let us know in the comments down below.

Instagram is a free download from App Store.