Instagram may no longer refresh your feed when you open the app

What we love (and sometimes hate) about Instagram is its ability to carefully craft the posts we see based on its algorithm. As fun and frustrating as it might be, you end up coming across several interesting photos and videos from creators you may not even follow.

If you’re organised, you probably have a bunch of folders with your favourite posts. However, if you accidentally close the app, there’s a good chance you may not see the said post again. It seems as though Instagram is all set to change this with an update that may no longer refresh your feed when you open the app. Here’s what this means for you.

Why does Instagram refresh its feed?

The behaviour may come across as a bug, but according to Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, it was designed and coined internally as ‘rug-pull’. In an AMA, he went on to answer how the smartphone app uses this mechanism while ‘trying to load new content’ for the user.

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Instead of making the user wait, Instagram would go on to show other downloaded content. Mosseri additionally mentioned in his Story how this behaviour was considered ‘good for engagement’.

That said, several Instagram users expressed their annoyance with the feature, and we couldn’t agree more. Thankfully, Mosseri, too, added how the behaviour was ‘really annoying’ and the platform may be doing away with it in the near future.

What are some other changes coming to Instagram?

Apart from this, Instagram has a bunch of changes in the pipeline — one of which includes employing AI to detect users lying about their age. The new AI-powered tool, known as the ‘adult classifier’, will soon analyse users’ online behaviour to determine their age. This was added after facing legal challenges and criticism from parents monitoring their children on the app.

In another instance, Instagram also confirmed how it reportedly lowers the quality of videos — unless they’re popular. The Meta-owned platform reportedly clarified how this is done based on an ‘aggregate way’ and by having a ‘sliding scale’ in mind.