Instagram will now load content but will not display it until the user scrolls.
Automatic refreshing of the feed was a feature and not a glitch, Instagram has confirmed
Photo Credit: Instagram
Instagram is implementing a change for the removal of a feature that has long been considered annoying by users, the company head has confirmed via social media. From now on, the social media platform's feed will not automatically refresh when the app is opened after a period of brief inactivity, enabling the user to see the posts which first appear on their screen. Notably, this development comes after the company confirmed that it deliberately lowers the quality of Instagram stories and Reels which do not fetch a lot of views, reserving the computation resources for videos that are being watched by a large number of users.
During a recent Ask Me Anything (AMA) (via @_blunderchief), Instagram head Adam Mosseri was asked about a recent change on the social media platform which people did not know about. The official highlighted that Instagram has stopped doing what is internally known as a “rug pull” — a user interface (UI) feature which resulted in the feed getting automatically refreshed when the user accessed the app.
As per Mosseri, this was done because the app was trying to load content and displayed the last downloaded posts and videos in the meantime. While this feature was aimed at improving user engagement, even the company official admitted it was “annoying” as any interesting content which first appeared on the screen moved and disappeared, forcing users to manually scroll down to look for it.
Thankfully, this will not be the case anymore as the change has been implemented on the social media platform, Mosseri has confirmed. Instead of automatically refreshing the feed, Instagram will now load content but will not display it until the user scrolls. Then, the newly loaded content will be inserted below the posts which are already displayed.
While this decision comes at the cost of an “engagement hit” for the platform, it is providing a “much better experience” for the average user.
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