Is Instagram bringing the chronological feed back?

If rumours first shared by Resource magazine are anything to go by, Instagram may be about to bring back the chronological feed, marking the biggest change on the image-sharing platform since the much-debated algorithmic feed was introduced in 2016. 

One of Instagram's most popular features at launch, the chronological feed displayed images in the order they were uploaded. This created a level playing field, meaning that photo of your cat would display straight after an image by Steve McCurry.

The introduction of the algorithmic feed changed this however, and left users to rely on Instagram's algorithm choosing what images to display.

The rumours of the change started with Instagram user @jackharding posting a video on his Instagram stories, showing his feed in chronological order. He said in the story:

“Instagram back to chronological order. I wonder if this is good or bad news."

In a follow-up, he revealed he is an Instagram employee, and part of a beta test of a new chronological feed. Following this, more reports about users seeing a chronological feed have since appeared.

If you're one of the users who have watched your engagement on instagram decline since the introduction of the algorithmic feed, then this is probably good news. Ironically users with big followings who have benefitted from the change may actually find their engagement suffers with the change.

Instagram has changed drastically in recent years. Along with a recent marked increase in advertising on the platform, the platform recently started inserting "recommended" posts of users you're not following into your feed.