Instagram hits pause on full-screen feed, some in-feed recommendations

After mounting criticism online, Instagram plans to walk back on some changes, including a test version of the app that shows full-screen photos and videos. It'll also reduce the recommended posts you see in the main feed. The new redesign test will be phased out over the next few weeks. 

These changes come as users express their frustration over the decisions Instagram makes to better compete with TikTok and navigate what it says is changing user behaviour from posting photos to watching more videos. Instagram head Adam Mosseri said this shift to more video consumption is real and pre-dated the rise of TikTok. But he acknowledged that people didn't like the design changes.

"For the new feed designs, people are frustrated and the usage data isn't great," he said. "So there I think that we need to take a big step back, regroup, and figure out how we want to move forward."

And for the time being, it'll reduce recommendations as it works to improve personalization. Mosseri didn't tell Platformer by how much. You can still expect to see more recommendations in the future, but they might hopefully be more tailored to your interests. 

Instagram's parent company Meta plans to boost recommended content on Facebook's feed to around 30% by the end of 2023. So, we wouldn't be surprised if Instagram follows suit.

"When you discover something in your feed that you didn't follow before, there should be a high bar — it should just be great," Mosseri said. "You should be delighted to see it. And I don't think that's happening enough right now. So I think we need to take a step back, in terms of the percentage of feed that are recommendations, get better at ranking and recommendations, and then — if and when we do — we can start to grow again."