On the 15th of March, Instagram posted a blog announcing that they would be changing their algorithms. Instead of viewing posts chronologically, you would now be shown the posts that they decide you’d be most interested in, based on your past interactions.
Rumblings were heard, people got mad. No one likes change. Seeing another social network go in the direction of Facebook was perceived as bad news for the majority of Instagram users.
Instagram did not give a date of the update. They just mentioned it would be happening over the next few months. Despite their tweet yesterday that nothing was changing yet. Millions of Instagram users uploaded photos to urge their followers to put on their post notifications so they would not miss out on a post.
We saw them, like you most likely did as well. We debated doing it, and decided to add a small note at the bottom of a picture we posted.
Then we actually thought about what it means. We thought about what asking you to put on your notifications for us would mean, for you. It would mean that anytime we posted something you would get a little ding on your phone notifying you that we had posted something. Essentially it would be us distracting you, barging into your life and urging you to stop what you’re doing and look at what we’re doing. And that is not what we’re about.
And so we edited the post to ask you not to do that.
Why?
Our goal is not to share aspirational images and messages for you to pin up on a board. For that one day you might want to carefully arrange all your fruits into a rainbow (which we may or may not have done before #funtimes).
We want to inspire you to find your healthy, and live your healthiest and best life. And that means stepping away from your phone not towards it. You don’t need more notifications, you need less.
Whether or not Instagram goes through with the changes (they probably will) or when it happens; or if it’s a good or bad thing.
This is why you shouldn’t turn on Instagram notifications
- That exhaustion, sweatiness, smelliness, pride and accomplishment you feel when you reach the finish line of a race is infinitely better than seeing a picture of someone else running.
- Sitting on a beach with the salty wind, watching the sun set feels infinitely calmer than scrolling through another perfectly filtered sunset image.
- The smell of something you’ve made from scratch wafting through your home. The feeling of pulling it out the oven is more delightful than a cute boomerang of someone whipping up a dish (but seriously try Boomerang – laughs for days).
- Sharing good food with friends and family, unplugged, tastes infinitely sweeter than the picture perfect image of a magazine ready table spread.
- Connecting with the people closest to you, without the distraction of a screen is a memory that will last a lot longer than the latest Instagram post.
- Listening to a friend tell a joke and laughing together IRL sounds a whole lot sweet than ROTFLing over the latest meme.
Yes, we love Instagram, we love sharing and we love seeing what you are up to. But more than that we love living, we love enjoying moments for what they are and not for they can be Instagrammed. So while, we’ll continue Facebooking, Tweeting and Instagraming and would love you to follow, like, comment and share. We want you to do it in your own time and not the time we say you should.
If you don’t want to miss a post visit our pages (@nutreats) once a day / week to catch up. Or sign up to our newsletter for a weekly wrap up. But don’t turn on your Instagram notifications.
So step away from your screen and go outside. You’ll discover a lot more by being immersed in the world than viewing it from a filter.
Photo Credit:@theyearofelan
