Why Instagram Users are Turned Off and Begging You to Turn On Your Notifications
Scroll through Instagram, and you’ll see it: Shameless pleas from accounts asking you to turn on notifications for their posts. One of Instagram’s biggest interface changes is scheduled to roll out soon, and users are turned off.
Since Instagram launched in 2010, posts have appeared in chronological order on feeds. However, Instagram is following in Facebook and Twitter’s footsteps, making it so that posts are populated based on who you interact with on the site the most.
In response to the expected change, users are asking their followers to turn on post notifications, because this ensures that their selfies and brunch plates will get views. These notifications are similar to the push notifications Instagram already sends if you are tagged in a picture. Except not.
Once you turn on notifications for someone, you will receive a push notification to your phone every single time they post something. Every. Single. Time. If you want notifications from more than a few people, that’s going to be a whole lot of buzzing. It’s also hard not to point out that receiving notifications for someone’s posts completely eliminates the problem with chronological timelines.
For now, the change is only being tested on a select subset of users, but it’s still igniting a controversy with Instagrammers across the globe. Instagram has yet to confirm when and how the changes will work worldwide, but because the company is owned by Facebook, people feel confident the algorithm will be similar.
Instagram says they promise to publicly announce when the changes roll out “broadly,” but you can count on not so subtle reactions from fans as a fool-proof measure.