Instagram's messing with your feed again by mixing in Suggested Posts

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By Oliver Haslam
published

Instagram profile with pronouns
Instagram profile with pronouns (Image credit: Luke Filipowicz / iMore)

What you need to know

  • Instagram is testing a change that would see Suggested Posts mixed in with content.
  • 'Suggested Posts' are normally found after you've scrolled beyond new content from people you follow.

Instagram is messing with our timelines again and will soon begin testing a change that puts Suggested Posts in between posts from people we follow. Those posts normally appear at the bottom of our feeds, once we've scrolled beyond everything from people we follow.

According to a new TechCrunch post, the change will also add a new 'Snooze' feature that will remove Suggested Posts from our feeds for 30 days. There won't be a way to disable the feature permanently, but it's a start.

Suggested Posts are normally posts chosen by Instagram's algorithm but this change will add an option for users to offer up their interests to allow Instagram to make better decisions about what it shows them.

The Suggested Posts expansion will be accompanied by a way for users to shape what they see through managing their interests — stuff like cats, makeup or basketball. If you've seen enough cats, you can toggle that interest off or tell Instagram that you never wanted to see those damn cats to begin with when it shows you the next one.

The change is still a test and there is no guarantee that it will make its way into the feeds of everyone. Instagram will be looking for feedback from those who find themselves on the list of those testing the new Suggested Posts rollout – let's hope it listens.

Instagram is one of the best ways to lose time on your iPhone, but it isn't one of the best iPhone apps by a long shot. Changes like this won't help it in that regard unless the algorithm is very good at finding content people didn't know they wanted to see.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.