How To Know If You Got The New Insta Update

There have been a lot of updates regarding the way we experience Instagram over the last few months. And yet, people are still not entirely clear on the one question on every Insta user's mind: how do I know if I have the new Instagram update? The particular update that launched today is the one that employs the timeline algorithm that lets you see your friends posts first, rather than seeing posts in chronological order. There's been a lot of chatter and opinions on the subject matter — users have made it clear that they don't like change. But the more we hear about this update, the more it starts to sound helpful, rather than some controlling corporate scheme keeping us from living our social media lives the way we want to live them! Instagram isn't out to get us, logo update haters and change-phobics.

The newest update, which Instagram announced today on their blog, will officially roll out this month. And despite what you think about change, you'll actually be getting more action on the app than before. As they cited in their announcement this morning, on average, users were missing up to 70 percent of their feeds, due to high volume. You couldn't possibly catch all of your friends' posts unless you were seriously glued to your phone 24/7 (OK, maybe some of you don't miss anything). But for a lot of us, who can't always sneak off to 'gram land at work, there's definitely content that we're missing out on. With this update, you wont miss what's important — i.e. your friends, the newest avocado trends, and what your ex is up to.

The algorithm knows you better than you think, so don't worry about it not making you happy. It pulls together a few factors like your interaction history with the user, and how relevant the post is to your interest history. So really, we should look at this update as an improvement. Our user experience will be more-finely tuned to our tastes, making us more likely to enjoy our feeds and interact with them. So the posts that appear first, will be the ones that Instagram truly believes you'll like the most. But this system will improve over time as we interact with it and offer feedback.

For some users, the update will be so subtle you won't necessarily realize it's been made right away. But if you're unsure if you've been included in the update, simply take a look at your timeline and check out the time stamps. Is it in order chronologically? If the answer is yes, the update hasn't reached you yet. If the answer is no, you've been welcomed into the new Instagram — congratulations!

And remember, despite the fact that your timeline will be in a different order, your still have unlimited access to viewing posts. If there's someone who you haven't noticed in your timeline recently, just look them up in the search bar and access them directly. Instagram isn't trying to keep you from anything, they're just trying to streamline your attention.

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