Instagram has announced a significant change in the way the application works, designed to deal with one of the most common complaints from users. Starting with the upcoming update, the feed will not refresh automatically when the app is opened, but only after the user starts scrolling.
Many users of Instagram have complained for years about the frustrating phenomenon: they open the application, see interesting content, but the moment they open, the feed refreshes and the content disappears. In many cases, finding the lost content has become an almost impossible task, especially when it comes to videos, given Instagram’s limited search system.
This behavior has caused a lot of speculation: is it a technical bug? The iOS or Android operating system may have frozen the app as a background process, and when it was reopened, the feed was refreshed.
A moral personhead of Instagram, addressed the issue in a question-and-answer (AMA) session held earlier this week. According to him, this behavior, which was called the “rug pull” within the company, was not a malfunction but a deliberate design.
Mosari explained that the app did this to “load new content, which took time to update, and in the meantime content that was already available on the device was displayed. This approach was considered beneficial for interacting with users.” However, he admitted that the implementation of the idea was not successful and that the content refresh should have been done only after the user starts scrolling.
Mosari noted that this behavior was “really annoying”, so it was decided to stop it. From now on, the feed will wait until the user starts scrolling before it refreshes and displays new content. Although this is a small change, it is expected to make the user experience significantly easier and arouse widespread satisfaction.
The change is now available for iOS and Android users, and is expected to be implemented in all recent versions of the app. In the last two months, Instagram has introduced a number of other innovations: among other things, the option to respond to stories publicly has been added, which allows for a more open and dynamic interaction between users.
In addition, the live broadcast capabilities have been upgraded, giving content creators new tools to improve the viewing and broadcasting experience. The process of sharing posts in the story has also become more convenient and intuitive, making it easier for users to share interesting content with their followers.