Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
In social media apps, the recommendation algorithms are uncannily good at discovering what results are of interest. However, if your recommendations run amok, you can always reset it on Instagram.
Instagram’s new features are currently being released to enhance the power that users have. Teens in particular are now being offered the ability to control their content and recommended links. The biggest enhancement I see here is the option to ‘reset’ across Explore, Reels, and Feed. This makes it possible for a user to erase the existing content hence creating a new one with the recommendations getting nearer to the personal preferences successively as indicated by subsequent user behaviors. Anyone who wants to ‘unfollow’ another user can also revisit the list of accounts they are subscribed to.
This initiative extends the existing tools such as the “Interested” and “Not Interested” selection where a user can control their recommendations while they do not have to leave everything to the algorithm, by using the basic 0/1 base. Also, there is a chronological “Following Feed” that such teens can choose to follow, or they can opt for creating the “Favorites” which collects the accounts whose updates are preferred.
More on NRTC
Nevertheless, Instagram stated it is willing to prevent showing age-inappropriate content through enhanced rules and protections. This is one way of getting to that goal—if a teen starts receiving lewd images’, ‘they can simply relaunch the algorithm back to square one’. Profane content is filtered and not recommended, concealed from teens or deleted if it goes against the established rules. To increase transparency, Instagram has put out a new page in the Transparency Center describing the moderating process on the platform. This resource helps parents and teens to know more options regarding the safety measures and the filters of the platform.
The function to reset your algorithm has been available for a while on TikTok. That platform has lots of settings to adjust the For You page, including things like offering every now and then: Do you like this? And, there is an option to adjust For You with generative AI. Ideally, we’d like to see more of these options on Instagram as they are pretty helpful if one spends lots of time scrolling through the app.
