We Miss the Old (Chronological) Insta: Use of Social Ties in the New Algorithmic Instagram
We are living in an age of social media. Instagram is one of the top social media sites among our generation, constantly trying to compete with other social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat. In order to stay in the top, Instagram has released some significant updates to its features and content. One of these significant updates was changing Instagram’s chronological display of content for a new algorithmic timeline. Many users dislike this update as it seems like an endless amount of scrolling to get to the last post you saw when you opened the app, but its intention was for users not to miss the people and content they care about most. An article by Andrew Hutchinson talks about the new Instagram algorithm that determines the order and types of posts that users see on their Instagram feeds. In a presentation describing the algorithm, the determining factors that decided post order were “people who’s content you like, people you direct message, people you search for, and people you know in real life.” In order for this algorithm to work well it was essential for Instagram to do a good job of determining the nature of a relationship with an account a user interacts with.
This relates to the strong and weak tie relationship discussed in class while talking about social networks. We discussed that we ties are helpful in providing novel information, but in the case of Instagram users want to see posts from people or pages that they have a strong tie to. Instagram determined that the more you engage with a user, the higher their content will be on their feed. I have experienced this first hand. After taking a social media hiatus for three weeks and signing back into Instagram for the first few times, I saw many posts from my good friends and people that I actually knew that were posted weeks ago. That was helpful in seeing what I missed from them and convenient because I did not have to go and search their pages. The Instagram algorithm did do a good job of determining my strong ties to users and specific content on that app. The Instagram explore page is another example of determining ties within a social networks. The explore page shows posts based on accounts you follow, accounts you interact with, or other videos you have watched and posts that you have liked. There is also an option on Instagram “See fewer posts like this” if you do not like to content on your explore page. With such algorithms and features, Instagram does a great job of giving a unique experience catered to users and content that you have strong ties to.
Article Link: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-networks/inside-instagram-algorithm