When Instagram ditched the ‘Activity’ feed more than five years ago, many users breathed a sigh of relief.
It was just odd, wasn’t it? Being able to see your in-laws and friends’ likes of questionable content. But it was all so enlightening, learning that others in your life were full-on MAGA.
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It was the right decision to kill the feature in 2019. Ignorance, sometimes, is bliss. But now it’s coming back via the Instagram Reels. It won’t be exactly the same.
It’s not entirely the same. The Reels tab will now (or will soon) have a ‘Friends’ feed showing items that your friends have liked or left a note on. Instagram reckons it’ll make the app more participatory, where you explore interests with friends rather than on your own. We’re not sure friends are going to take to kindly seeing the interests some Instagram users explore on their own, but anyway, over to the Instaboss:
“Bringing your friends to the Reels tab. We want Instagram to not only be a place where you consume entertaining content, but one where you connect over that content with friends,” wrote regular bearer of bad news Instagram boss and bad Buddy Holly impersonator Adam Mosseri in an Instagram post.
“Now, when you go to the Reels tab, you’ll see a dedicated feed of reels your friends have liked or added a note to in the top right and start a conversation with them right there. We’re rolling this out in a handful of countries to start, more to come soon.”
So, it’s back to being careful about what you like on Instagram if you don’t want your followers to see it. The popular comments in the thread beneath Mosseri’s post seem to echo a particularly one-sided sentiment.
“Honestly, I just want to scroll without feeling watched,” writes @sociojenics. “This feature shows what reels our friends like. Initially I found it intriguing but later felt it was a bit intrusive.”
Another user, @michelletanner, added: “So stop liking reels so people say out my business. Got it.”
