Instagram will soon roll out a new feature globally that will allow everyone on Instagram to perform a “Recommendations reset,” which makes the algorithm forget everything it thinks it knows about you and start from scratch.
The feature will be available to everyone but Meta, the parent company of Instagram, is positioning the change as beneficial for especially teens.
“We want to make sure everyone on Instagram — especially teens — has safe, positive, age-appropriate experiences and feels the time they’re spending on Instagram is valuable. In addition to providing built-in protections from sensitive content with Teen Accounts, we want to give teens new ways to shape their Instagram experience, so it can continue to reflect their passions and interests as they evolve,” Meta says.
Resetting recommendations doesn’t stop the algorithm from adapting to what a user does, it just resets the clock. Meta says that recommendations will start to personalize again over time and show new content based on the content and accounts a user interacts with.
Additionally, when doing a recommendations reset, users will also have the option to review accounts they follow and specifically unfollow any of that content that they don’t want to see rather than doing a wholesale restart.
“This new feature, which will soon roll out globally, builds on the tools we already offer to let people curate what they see in their recommendations,” Meta says, but did not specify a time frame.
“We also offer a range of tools to help teens shape their Instagram experience, beyond recommendations. For example, teens can switch to a Following Feed to see, in chronological order, content from accounts they follow, with the most recent post first. Alternatively, they can add accounts to a Favorites list so they see content from those accounts more often and higher in their Feed, and they can see a dedicated feed of just their favorites when they want to catch up on their posts quickly,” Meta adds.
“Features like Close Friends give teens more control over who sees their Stories, while the “Your activity” section in settings lets teens see and manage all their previous interactions in one place, giving them more control over their digital footprint. We also encourage teens to regularly review their following lists, to make sure the accounts they’re following are still accounts whose content they enjoy seeing.”
Image credits: Meta
