Having promised to do so earlier this year, Instagram is launching a new version of the app that lets you view the feed flow (feed) in chronological order, instead of an arrangement determined entirely by the company’s algorithm. The “innovation” – which is nothing but a return to a feature that existed in the app years ago and was removed – is now available to both iOS users and Android devices.
To go through the chronological torch, click on the Instagram logo that appears in the upper left corner of the screen. This click will open a menu with two options: Following, which is simply a chronological feed feed, and Favorites, a chronological feed that only displays updates from users that have been set to “Favorites”. The app allows to determine up to 50 such users, and their posts will also be given priority in the algorithmic feed.
It is worth noting that when adding or removing users from the favorites list, those users will not see any notification about it. That’s why Instagram indicates that the list of favorites can be edited freely.
While Instagram has indeed kept its promise and now allows users to choose a chronological arrangement of posts, the default option of the app remains the automatic feed, which also involves commercial considerations. There is currently no way to set the “new” chronological feed by default in its place, and therefore users are required to select it again each time the app is restarted.