Since its launch, Instagram has pretty much stayed the same. It’s all about the pictures and people respond by posting, following, double tapping and commenting. The more interactions you receive, the more your mind goes into overdrive. They say it’s almost as addictive as cocaine and, well, if you have done both, you may know they’re not lying.

First, people were awfully sceptical when Instagram was acquired by Facebook a couple of years ago. I mean, Facebook destroyed Twitter, which is basically home to media junkies and hashtag-trend junkies.

Slowly, Facebook has rolled out the changes, adding an extra account over here or a chat service over there. Nothing mainstream, just little extras. So when they announced the biggest change last week, people were very unimpressed.

Based on a newly developed algorithm, the photo sharing app is about to change the way it displays its photos. Ditching the chronological listing, the algorithm will now show you photos it thinks you want to see. While it is being tested by a small percentage of Instagram’s 400 million users, the change won’t appear for weeks, if not months.

The order of photos and videos in your feed will be based on the likelihood you’ll be interested in the content, your relationship with the person posting and the timeliness of the post. As we begin, we’re focusing on optimising the order — all the posts will still be there, just in a different order.

In other words, based on how active the post is, if there are a lot of comments and likes, that will be shown first to viewers.

Ring any bells?

At the end of the day, the people who will benefit the most are advertisers. You pay to play, and the more you pay, the more people will be seeing you.

Not even surprising. Although Instagram made the excuse, saying that people missed 70% of what was posted – isn’t that kinda the point? – the goal is to now make sure you see everything you want to see. Or do you mean, everything you get paid to make us want to see?

But now, since users are afraid of the way that the algorithm will effect their business (as most have worked out when most of their users are online and stick to it) they have began the most irritating new trend. They are requesting that you “turn on push notifications” so you get a notification when they post anything.

We can only give you one warning: DO NOT RESPOND. Unless they’re your bae and you just can’t afford to miss anything they post – like these guys.

[source: huffingtonpost&usatoday]