Instagram's suggested posts will keep you scrolling forever
Who needs anti-addiction features?
Instagram has found a new way to keep you addicted: By making your feed infinite. The photo app is quietly introducing a new suggested posts feature today that will automatically deliver new content once you’re done scrolling through your feed. Notably, Instagram is adding the suggests posts after its “You’re all caught up notice,” which pops up after viewing all of your feed updates. That was introduced two years ago as an anti-addiction measure, but it seems like the need to compete with Tiktok’s ever-improving algorithm is the more pressing concern for Instagram today.
The new suggested posts will be a combination of automatic recommendations and ads, naturally. Robby Stein, Instagram’s director of product, tells TechCrunch that the feature is a response to seeing users seeking out more posts once they reached the end of their feed. But it’s hard not to draw a direct line to Tikto. Its feed learns what you like over time and serves new videos to you directly, without the need to follow anyone. That’s made it a particularly addictive as many users are stuck at home, and it’s left Instagram scrambling to find a way to compete. And at this point, it doesn’t seem like Reels is the Tiktok killer Instagram needs.
