Instagram Gets Rid of ‘Annoying’ Automatic Feed Refreshing When App is Opened
Instagram will now load content but will not display it until the user scrolls.
Advertisement
Highlights
- Instagram removes “rug pull” feature which automatically refreshed feed
- The platform will wait for users to scroll before showing new content
- This move is aimed at providing a better user experience
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.
No More Automatic Feed Refreshing on Instagram
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.
Advertisement
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.
For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.
Advertisement