Fans love Instagram but hate its algorithm, the method by which it scrambles pictures in your feed so that you see photos in a jumble instead of in the chronological order they were posted. Instagram knows the algorithm is hated. But rather than just do away with it or make it optional, since user experience is second to ensuring you spend as much time as possible in the app, they’ve tried to add features to make the algorithm less obnoxious. Today that’ll include a new one designed to fight FOMO.
Instagram has rolled out a new feature that will tell you that you’re “all caught up” on iOS and Android. In this case, it means you’ve seen every post in your feed from the last two days. Amusingly, the demonstration of the message they have wedges the notification between two posts. It also sadly doesn’t feature a picture of Usher, but we guess you can’t have everything.
It’s certainly a useful feature, at least if you want to know you’re on top of your friends’ posts. But at the same time, it does underscore how stubborn Instagram is being about its algorithm. It’s been made fairly clear to them that the algorithm is unwanted, no matter how many features they add, and it’s equally clear that unless people stop using Instagram, the algorithm isn’t going anywhere. But hey, at least you’ll be caught up.
(via 9to5Mac)