The first week of 2022 is barely even over and the Instagram updates just keep rolling in. There has been a lot of chatter about what changes are coming to Instagram this year, so let’s break down what changes we’ve seen over the last six months and what we can expect to see very soon! 

First, and arguably one of the most anticipated rollouts we can expect to see soon is chronological feeds. But, that’s not it! Rather than Instagram overhauling the entire feed as we know it, they are instead implementing three, interchangeable feeds to cater to individual user experiences. In addition to the chronological feed, users will also have the option to look at a “Favorites” feed that will be a user-selected group of accounts that will also show up in chronological order. Think family, close friends, or even your favorite influencers whose content you don’t want to miss. The third feed will be “Home,” the feed we all know and use today. Nothing will change here, and we can still expect to see the oh-so lovely algorithm at work. 

Now, let’s go over the many changes we’ve seen over the previous months. A major overhaul was made in stories, specifically the elimination of the OG “swipe up” linking capability which was replaced with a link sticker. And if that wasn’t enough of a whirlwind, we then saw the rollout of universal link stickers, which were originally only awarded to users with over 10 thousand followers. 

We also saw the rollout of “Collabs,” a feature that permits users to co-author posts, as well as the capabilities to post to Instagram via desktop and several new metrics added to user insights. 

And of course we can’t forget about “Add Yours,” a sticker prompt that allows users to create a thread of shared content that matches a particular prompt or question. 

We then saw increased measures to encourage user safety and wellbeing as in relation to time spent on the app, including Sensitive Content Control and Take a Break. These settings encourage users to make more informed decisions about time spent on the app in addition to limiting harmful or sensitive content consumed while scrolling. 

And, here we are! It is certainly noticeable that Instagram is trying to make their app more collaborative, like rival app TikTok. We even heard from head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri himself stating that Instagram is no longer just a photo-sharing app. But – we think these new updates coming to our feeds are finally an effort to listen to long-standing user requests and we truly hope it was worth the wait!