Instagram wants to stop us from turning into zombies. Kind of.
In 2016, the photo-sharing app swapped out chronological order in exchange for an algorithm. Since then, users have been wasting their time mindlessly scrolling through the app, trying to find new content burried within their feeds. Needless to say, this isn’t “time well spent”.
The good news is Instagram has realized this – and now wants its users to stop wasting their time on the app.
Yesterday, the Facebook-owned photo-sharing app rolled out a new feature. Known as the “you’re all caught up” warning, Instagram will now inform it’s users once they’ve viewed all of the content from the past 48 hours posted on the app.
Interesting.
According to TechCrunch “. . . this will help Instagram’s 1 billion monthly users stop fiendishly scrolling in search of new posts scattered by the algorithm. While sorting the feed has made it much better at displaying the most interesting posts, it also can make people worry they’ve missed something. This warning should give them peace of mind.”
Instagram is also testing a Usage Insights feature, so users will be able to monitor exactly how much time they’re spending on the platform.
Until then if you see the warning above pop up in your app . . . you might want to consider laying off the ‘gram.
What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.