Yes, you read it right. The Instagram following tab is no more a feature in our Instagram app. By now, lots of you have noticed the disappearance of the following tab in the activity section of Instagram, and that’s because Instagram has decided to remove this feature completely. Many users have lost the feature by now, and the rest would have it gone by the end of this week.
Below, I am going to go through everything, including why Instagram has decided to remove the following feature from all the Instagram accounts.
What was the Instagram following tab, and what was its function?
For the ones who did not even know such a function existed on Instagram, I’m going to give a bit information about what this late feature was.
The following tab was one of the two parts Instagram has provided us in our activity tab, which is the one with the heart icon. Besides the “You” in your activity tab, there used to be a “Followings” page until a few days ago, which used to show you the activities of the accounts you were following. You could easily see what your followings liked or commented on, even the accounts they followed.
The Instagram following tab showed the activities of accounts to you from seconds to a maximum of four weeks before when you checked this section.Instagram has just officially reported the removal of this feature about weeks ago; meanwhile, so many users were reporting that they are missing the following tab, and they cannot see the activities of their followers since August, on their social media accounts or forums like Reddit.
Why is Instagram removing the Instagram following tab?
There are surely some reasons for this huge decision of getting rid of the following tab after these years, and some of them are listed below:
- The feature was not being used in its right way
“Simplicity was the driving factor,” Shah said of Instagram’s decision to remove the Following tab.As Vishal Shah, Instagram’s head of product has stated, the main reason for removing this feature is that it was not being used for the aim it was serviced for.
Instagram added the following tab to Instagram back in 2011 before the emergence of the explore page, so that people can find new people and discover new content, but this feature was misused and became more a stalking tool to users.
- Not a lot of people were using the tab
Vishal Shah even told “Buzzfeed” that many Instagramers were not even aware of the fact that that the following tab existed, and their activities were being exposed to others.
Another reason for removing the following tab is that Instagram heads believed that it was not a feature used by a lot of users, and nobody found it advantageous but only devastating to relationships and friendships.
This feature has unfortunately ruined lots of relationships by exposing the activities of people in a relationship to their partners while, for example, liking Instagram models pictures or something like that.
Lots of friendships were also affected by the disadvantage of the Instagram following tab. Imagine your friend telling you that they are feeling very bad and are very busy answering your call, but meanwhile, you catch them red-handed and notice they are liking pictures and doing some sorts of activities on Instagram, which was totally shown in your followings activity tab.
- The explore page does better than the following tab
Another important reason for the decision of removing the following tab was that Instagram heads believe that the explore page now does everything which the following tab was aimed for, and people can now find new accounts and fresh content from the explore page which also has lots of other functions than the following tab, and users mostly use it.
What will the activity tab look like after the following tab is gone?
From yesterday, the global process of getting rid of the Instagram following tab has started, and by now, lots of accounts have noticed an error on their activity tab as the screenshot below, informing them that after updating the app the tab is gone forever. And for people like me, which the tab is still there, it is not accessible, and the error below is shown to them:
After this feature is removed for you as well, you will no longer be able to see any of your followings activities, and in this tab there will be only one function of seeing the activities of other accounts on your account and posts.
Source: The Controversial Instagram Following Tab is no more!