Fun & Famous
why the ‘new’ instagram is extremely annoying
Last week, Instagram decided to be very sneaky and add a change to their app. In the middle of the night, while most of the world was asleep. Result? I woke up with a text from a friend in complete and utter panic: “Kiki, I only got five likes on my Insta post. FIVE. Instead of thirty.”
Confused? Well let me break it down for you. The timeline of the app is no longer chronological. Instagram decided to mix it up and now your timeline is based on the likes and reactions from the people following you. Still confusing? Well, if you happen to have an insane amount of followers, then no worries, your photos will make plenty of appearances in timelines. But when you’re less popular on the gram, you’re going to missing out on a lot of hearts and likes because your updates won’t be as visible in peoples timelines anymore. The latter being the case for my friend.
“Turn on your post notifications”
In the days following the update, I saw one after another photo pop up with the desperate caption: “Turn on your post notifications.” If you happen to really like someone or you’re a neurological stalker, you can get notifications anytime that one person uploads a photo. Am I the only one who finds this ridiculous? I mean, isn’t the list of people you follow on Instagram a list of people you actually want to see updates from? Anyways, that friend of mine decided to turn on the notifications setting from the thirty people she ‘likes the most’ on Insta. Two days later and she was going crazy from all the push notifications on her phone. Apparently not a good idea after all…
“What the hell is up Insta? Why are you deciding what I do and don’t get to see?”
Wasn’t it always nice to see photos of dinners around dinner time, #tgif hashtags on a Friday morning and dancing and cocktail photos on a Saturday night? Instead of the regulars, the app now makes the decision of what you get to see based on the profiles you visit. Photos of less ‘popular’ people are now buried far far down the scroll bar, and that’s precisely where you’ll find the photos my friend posted.
This new update sucks for my friend but how about all those small webshops out there? Less engagement on a photo can lead to a decrease in sales. In a world where the amount of hearts you receive seems to be crucial, the battle has now become unfair. If I grab my phone as we speak, and scroll through my account, the first ten pictures I see are definitely from popular bloggers. I’m not saying I don’t like their photos, because I do, but I hardly come across any updates from my friends even though I always ‘like’ their posts and I follow them for a reason. By following certain people, isn’t that indication enough of what I want to see in my timeline? I don’t need someone making the decision for me. Or is this their way to prep us that we’re going to have to be paying for our accounts sometime soon in the future? What’s going on, Insta?
