What can Instagram do to protect its young users from the traumatizing impact social media is said to have? As Adam Mosseri, the Instagram CEO, testified before the Senate subcommittee, he said he had been working on reintroducing chronological feed, which would neutralize all the impact of the AI-controlled feed priority.
From Mosseri’s speech, though, we know that the company plans to reintroduce chronological feeds in the first quarter of 2022. It will be available as an option; any user who has this available will be able to choose whether to show the suggested posts first or to show the entire feed in chronological order. The latter option will automatically put the AI out of control.
Even if Instagram really plans to return to chronological feeds (at least as an option), there will be questions about how it is implemented. There is a similar example of hiding the exact number of likes, so only the author of the post can see it. Though the implementation of it started long ago and for the same reasons – to minimize the impact of like-hunting on the youth, there are only select accounts so far for which it works. Another tool introduced by Instagram, Take a Break, is meant to let users have some rest from endless scrolling by reminding them about time and disabling scrolling for a certain period, but it isn’t universally available either.
Another measure proposed by Mosseri in his speech was the idea of creating a special body of social media owners that define the standards of communication and hold the responsibility for it before society as well as regulators. Mosseri, though, did not specify how exactly it should work.
And what about you? Would you rather see your Instagram feed in chronological order or in one suggested by the AI? Is the danger of social media real, or are these rumors exaggerated? Share your opinion in the comments!
