All week, Instagram timelines and posts have been filled with the phrase “Turn on post notifications” from various celebrities and bloggers. This “update” for Instagram has spread like wildfire and now everyone is worried that their followers will no longer see their posts.
Instagram will soon be instating a new program that will no longer show your timeline posts in chronological order. Instead, Instagram will post photos that are “most popular” to you based on your interactions with those you follow.
The idea that this will be implemented has caused many to worry because sometimes we, as avid social media users, tend to social media “stalk.” We might follow someone who has thousands of followers, like a celebrity, and not like any of their posts. If you don’t physically “like” someone’s Instagram posts, there’s a good chance you won’t be seeing them on your timeline.
This update has brought a cry of annoyance from many users. One of these users includes Kylie Jenner, a TV personality and entrepreneur. Last week she posted an Instagram along with the caption that many others have been repeating: “If it’s not broke don’t fix it!”
With the outcry, Instagram tweeted on March 28 that even though there is talk about changing the order of timelines, they will let us know when and if the changes will be taking place.
The Refinery notes that the CEO Kevin Systrom is implementing this new change in an effort for users to see more posts. Systrom says that users miss around 70% of the posts that our in their feed and with the new algorithm posts, what you want to see won’t be missed anymore.
The algorithm is supposed to be similar to the way Facebook posts are positioned on news feeds. There have not been many complaints regarding Facebook’s algorithm, so that is what Instagram is hoping for as well.
For now, the need to turn on notifications is pretty unnecessary. The new algorithm has not been set in place yet so turning on notifications right now is unnecessary. All it will do is blow up your phone with notifications of posts by those you choose to receive notifications from.