{"id":626450,"date":"2026-09-16T13:16:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T13:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/626450\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T13:16:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T13:16:22","slug":"i-turned-off-my-instagram-algorithm-heres-what-happened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/626450\/","title":{"rendered":"I turned off my Instagram algorithm… here’s what happened"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a confession. I love my social media algorithm. It is a perfectly curated window into my insane and inquiring mind. It knows precisely which videos will tickle me and which memes will gently distract me from the slow collapse of humankind.<\/p>\n

The Australian government recently announced \u201cworld-leading\u201d reforms that would force social media platforms to allow users to opt-out of algorithms, dubbed \u2018my feed, my way\u2019. On the same day, I was delighted to be confronted with a video on Instagram of a woman accidentally spilling a bucket of eels on a Chinese train. Dozens of eels slithered among the passengers, who appeared not as surprised as I would have expected.<\/p>\n

In bed that night, after sending the video to several friends and watching it multiple times, I lamented to my partner how I would find content like this if my accounts weren\u2019t at the whim of the algorithm gods. \u201cYou can still search for eels,\u201d he said. But would it be the same?<\/p>\n

So, for 24 hours, I decided to manually turn off my algorithm via little-known settings on Instagram to get a sense of how the reforms might change my feed. This feature \u2014 accessed simply by tapping on the Instagram logo at the top of the home screen \u2014 allows you to limit your feed to posts from accounts you are following, in chronological order. This is basically what social media feeds, including Facebook, looked like when they started.<\/p>\n

The old days of social media<\/p>\n

Would I be thrust back into the old days of social media, to how things were before artificial intelligence and Elon Musk bought Twitter and everything became an ad?<\/p>\n

As a reminder of how things used to be, I scroll back to my first posts on Instagram and find sepia-heavy pictures of trees, gigs, and friends. \u201cThe SKY,\u201d says one, simply showing a sunset.<\/p>\n

I am gripped with nostalgia for 2012, when all my posts got eight likes and no comments and I only followed two dozen close friends from school.<\/p>\n

For a truly \u2018authentic\u2019 social media experience, I trawl through my contacts and unfollow any account that isn\u2019t a person I have met in real life. It is refreshing to unfollow news accounts, and politicians, but sad to let go of funny influencers and meme accounts and chefs.<\/p>\n

\u2018Goodbye, Ottolenghi,\u2019 I think wistfully. \u2018Farewell, woman from Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders.\u2019 In total, about 100 accounts get the axe. I refresh my feed, and it only takes about 10 minutes of scrolling to run out of content to look at.<\/p>\n

\n For the first time in years, Instagram informs me I have reached the \u2018End of following\u2019. \u201cThere are no more posts from accounts that you follow from the past 30 days,\u201d it says.\n <\/p>\n

I am floored and unmoored. Each time I refresh my feed for the next few hours, there is nothing new for me to mindlessly scroll. Instinctively, I keep clicking on the app but it\u2019s futile. Is this how social media used to be? A tool to communicate with people rather than a way to remain constantly distracted?<\/p>\n

What disturbs me, though, scrolling through a feed that should theoretically be made up of friends and family updating me about nice moments in their lives, is that it still feels hollow and impersonal.<\/p>\n

Mostly, people are using it for self-promotion, whether it be posting about something they\u2019ve published, projects they\u2019ve done, brand partnerships or attempts to \u2018go viral\u2019. The only ones who seem to be using social media as it used to be are my mum and her friends, who still upload happy snaps with abandon. This is soothing but also very boring. And do I really need to know or care that someone I met backpacking in 2015 is appearing at an art festival in Amsterdam?<\/p>\n

\n During my lunch break, instead of hitting the apps, I read my book and look at my surroundings. It\u2019s nice. Maybe the solution is not to opt out of algorithms but to opt out of social media altogether.\n <\/p>\n

The justification for turning off algorithm-driven content makes sense. The Australian government and many experts have raised concerns about how dangerous and divisive content can be pushed into people\u2019s feeds, drawing them further and further into rabbit holes.<\/p>\n

I have watched on with concern as figures from the \u2018manosphere\u2019 gain traction across the world alongside the rise of far-right parties, and how thinness appears to be the new norm in Hollywood, with eating disorder content proliferating on X, TikTok, and Instagram.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, this has not been my social media experience. According to Instagram\u2019s AI summary of my algorithm, a little-known feature of the app, I enjoy \u2018community events\u2019 and \u2018saving furry friends\u2019, with a particular penchant for content related to the \u2018Sydney food scene\u2019\u201d and, somewhat vaguely, \u2018Australia\u2019 (click on the reels icon then the double-heart symbol in the top-right corner to see yours).<\/p>\n

My \u2018For You\u2019 page is a haphazard collection of animals, food and gossip about reality TV.<\/p>\n

The top posts are an old man who summarises the latest episodes of Below Deck Mediterranean, a dachshund with a spatula, and someone making a cake with the face of Edward Cullen. It knows me so well!<\/p>\n

\n But is this healthy? Do I really need to spend my time watching AI-generated dogs dancing in the shower, or marvelling at a man attempting to eat a gigantic cone of soft-serve ice-cream?\n <\/p>\n

After 24 hours switching off, my conclusion? It\u2019s numbing my brain and turning my own thoughts into slop.<\/p>\n

\n The Guardian\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I have a confession. I love my social media algorithm. It is a perfectly curated window into my…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,2334,219,61,60,58,80],"class_list":["post-626450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-social-media","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}