A new chronological ordering option on Instagram will launch in the first quarter of 2022, letting you switch to displaying the most recent posts at the top of your feed.
HIGHLIGHTS
- A chronologically sorted feed will arrive in the first quarter of 2021
- You’ll be able to switch between the algorithmic and chronological feed
- Users have been asking for chronological feed ordering for years now
Instagram will get a chronological feed option in 2022
The information is based on Instagram head David Mosseri’s testimony before the Senate subcommittee on various child safety issues plaguing the Meta-owned photo service.
During a hearing before a Senate subcommittee on Wednesday, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said the company is working on a version of its feed that would show users’ posts in chronological order, unlike its current ranking algorithm that sorts posts based on user preferences.
Mosseri later confirmed the change in a written statement to the press. “We’re currently working on a version of a chronological feed that we hope to launch next year,” he said. As Engadget reports, Instagram will also add a Favorites feed with posts from designated friends higher in the feed. Both feeds will be optional.
Instagram is basically undoing its least popular feature—more so considering that people have been clamoring for a chronological feed option for years now. It’s a bit surprising that Instagram needs months to implement a chronological feed. In the past, Instagram did offer a chronological feed as the only way to browse posts on the service.
But that changed in 2016 when Instagram debuted an algorithmically sorted feed.
The following year, the algorithmic feed was updated with recommended posts. Those changes didn’t sit well with many people who prefer to see posts from their friends in the order of publication as opposed to the current algorithmic feed based on users’ activity.
Instagram’s child safety issues
Instagram is having a pretty bad year even though it started rather optimistically with an announcement in March of this year for Instagram for Kids, a special version of Instagram optimized for children under the age of 13.
The turning point came when Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked internal research proving company leadership knew their product is harmful to young girls and boys and detrimental to the fabric of society. As a result of the fallout from these scandalous revelations, Instagram for Kids has been put on ice.
Instagram also promised new features designed to lessen the potential harm to teens. Some of those include, aside from other improvements, tightening account creation rules for kids, defaulting new kids’ accounts to private and advising young people to take a break from the platform for a while.