Personally, if there is one app that can keep me glued to it forever, it has to be Instagram. There’s news for all you Instagram lovers which will make sure your scrolling on the app increases! ‘Suggested Posts’ on Instagram is the new way of keeping you hooked to the app by making sure that your feed stays interesting enough for you to never leave.

We all know that Instagram curates the feed of a user by focussing on content that aligns with their preferences, making sure that you mostly see content that interests and engages you in some way or the other.

Through ‘Suggested Posts’ on Instagram, there has been a slight change because now, even if you have reached the end of your feed, Instagram will ask you if you wish to keep scrolling and will suggest content to you as you go along. This will definitely shoot up the number of minutes or even hours a user, on an average, spends on the app. 

Instagram had brought a new feature on the app in the year 2018 which mentioned the ‘You’re all caught up’ message, this was basically introduced to make sure users consciously bring down the amount of time spent on the app.

Now right after the ‘You’re all caught up’, users will be suggested content according to their tastes and preferences. If you like food and travel, then you will be shown related posts. Additionally, users might be able to “explore” adjacent content on Instagram through ‘Suggested Posts’.

Increased screentime will invariably effect advertisements which will go up on the platform, benifitting advertisers. 

According to Julian Gutman, who heads the product team of the Instagram Feed, through ‘Suggested Posts’ on Instagram, the platform is only trying to bring about an “extension” of the user’s feed and preferences. “We want to show you more content from across Instagram that’s relevant to you and that’s really related to the content that you already follow,” Gutman mentions.

As mentioned earlier, Instagram had previously tried to help users curb their screen time and be conscious of their media consumption patterns. Upon enquiring whether ‘Suggested Posts’ help the situation, Gutuman said otherwise. He said that this update was not brought to bring up the usage of the app, but to help users delve deeper into their interests.