Op-Ed: Convenience or corporatization: Analyzing the new Instagram algorithm

Instagram has not only transformed because of its growing membership, ubiquity or usefulness for brands and other public entities. Changes to Instagram’s algorithm have altered the way we view and access shared content in our feeds. In essence, the new algorithm attempts to provide you with content types you “engage” with most: If you tend to like or save pictures featuring Glossier Boy Brow but don’t tend to engage with personal photos shared by high school classmates you still begrudgingly follow, the Glossier posts will quickly shuffle to the top. Likewise, the algorithm analyzes the initial “success” of your current post against previous ones. If engagement is comparably high, your post is more likely to appear higher on your followers' feeds, as well as their Explore page.

As a result, for most users, with each post, only a select number of followers are “engaged,” while the rest have to scroll farther and farther down their feed to see your post, regardless of how recently it has been shared. At first glance, this move may seem efficient, even intentionally providing us with what we want, when we want it — a curated, personalized viewership experience. As millennials, we supposedly like customized media, right? But, of course, like most things, and more particularly, like most things social media, there is a more corporate motivation which shouldn’t be overlooked.

First, I believe the new algorithm was designed in part because engagement hours keep old advertisers and gain the attention of new ones, so Instagram wants to ensure that you stay on the app as long as possible — scrolling past a couple ads in your feed to find posts shared only an hour earlier speaks to this. In fact, in the past year alone, Instagram has made several other in-app changes; notably, as of Feb. 1st,advertisers can post “up to three pieces of content” for the spots between the Instagram Stories of those you follow.

So, what is the relevance of all of this? It’s fair to say that for many of us, Instagram is merely an ephemeral source of entertainment, joy, validation, what have you. We might use it as a way to survey the lives of old girlfriends and classmates, or to preview Tinder matches to prevent a catastrophic date. The Internet has been a longstanding equalizing force within the distribution of visual media, as well as of content and information more generally. However, these trends to prefer larger content creators over smaller ones, prefer “promoted” posts over those shared more organically or to encourage increased engagement hours by shuffling new posts further down the pile — and force our attention to a half dozen ads as a result. This speaks to a slow death of this history, a death made all the more concerning by the impending end to net neutrality. Instagram is easy to pick fun at, but it is also the top social platform for engagement, and is now growing at its fastest rate. As the end of net neutrality forecasts a class-segregated Internet, what we view matters, but so does how we view it.