A sort of Instagram’s new test Might make it harder for you to view recent content in the app. While you can now find a variety of recent Instagram posts centered on a particular hashtag, the test will only let you see the most-liked posts or short videos called “reels” related to that hashtag. The company said the trial will mix “updated and timely content” in both groups to see how people engage.
When they first launched on Instagram, hashtags might have been a fun way to highlight photo trends, but now they’re mostly a way to give users more visibility, and thus more clicks and likes. According to Instagram, the “Popular Posts” tab displays popular posts, while the “Recent” tab displays content in the order in which they were posted, regardless of how many likes they received.
For a group, we’re testing updated and timely content in the “Popular” and “Reel” tabs of hashtags, and removing the “Recent” tag. We wanted to see if this helped people connect with more interesting and relevant content on hashtags, while also keeping them up to date with the latest content. pic.twitter.com/nLb6BiFRws
— Instagram Communications (@InstagramComms) April 19, 2022
Social media apps continue to rely on algorithms to show users more diverse (and marketable) content, despite negative reactions from users who prefer to view their timelines in chronological order.As apps like TikTok steal users and attention — and even become more It’s more popular than YouTube for Android users — Instagram has been rolling out (or in this case, canceling) features in an attempt to make Reels a natural alternative to viewing photos.
Figuring out how users interact with more systematically categorized content has also influenced changes on other platforms. Last month, Twitter made it harder to see things in order by defaulting users to an algorithmic timeline, but reversed the change a few days later.
If it’s released more broadly, it will be interesting to see how this change affects the type of content users see on Instagram.
