Instagram's new algorithm reset feature helps users clear digital footprints

Instagram has introduced a new feature allowing users to reset the algorithm that determines content recommendations in Explore, Reels, and Feed. Currently in testing, this update aims to enhance user experience globally, with a special focus on teenagers.

Recommendations will start to personalise again over time, showing new content based on the content and accounts users interact with. When resetting, they’ll also have the option to review the accounts they’re following and unfollow any that share content with them no longer want to see.

However, the reset could make targeting more challenging, as historical data loses relevance. Marketers and brands may need to rely more on real-time analytics and adopt broader, less segmented content strategies to engage evolving user bases.

Instagram has also partnered with organisation experts Joanna and Clea from The Home Edit to share tips for parents on how both they and their teens can organise their Instagram accounts, just like they’d organise their homes, taking stock of what they’re looking at every now and then to see whether it still suits them and whether there’s other content they may prefer.

It has introduced a new page in Transparency Center, to help parents and teens better understand how this approach to content works. The new page sets out the different layers of protection and provides examples of the types of content the app removes, hides from teens only and avoids recommending.