Instagram’s new ‘Suggested Posts’ feature will keep you scrolling forever

As if Instagram weren’t addictive enough already, the company is adding a new feature that’s intended to keep you scrolling through your feed even longer. Starting today, Instagram will load ‘Suggested Posts‘ at the end of your feed, once you’re all caught up with updates from friends and other accounts you follow.

Normally when you get to the end of your feed, Instagram simply displays a ‘You’re all caught up!’ message and lets you view older posts. Instead, after said message, you’ll now see suggested posts from other accounts by default – including ads, of course.

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Luckily, you can still view older posts at the tap of a button — you’ll see the option right under the caught up message. You can also tell Instagram when you’re not interested in a suggested post by tapping the three-dot menu and selecting ‘not interested;’ that’ll tell the algorithm it has some tweaking to do. Unfortunately, you cannot disable suggested posts altogether — they’re here to stay.

As pointed out by Engadget, the feature does seem reminiscent of the way TikTok operates; it’s an easy way to keep users engaged and finding new accounts. Instagram does have the Explore tab for those purposes too, but I personally never visit that hub. The new functionality could in theory be more seamless — or insidious, depending on your point of view.

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Published August 20, 2020 — 02:56 UTC