Algorithms dominate social media feeds these days, and while that can be great for showing you content that you might not have discovered before, it can often be frustrating to be left at the mercy of what the app wants to show you.
We've all been there when your social media platform of choice has suddenly decided that you're interested in something for no reason, and you're forced to constantly scroll past posts that you have no interest in with no way of changing it.
Many of these sites and apps do implement ways that you can 'inform' the algorithm that you don't want to see certain posts, but it's often hard to explicitly communicate what you do and don't like seeing.
Advert
However, Instagram has answered people's requests by adding a game-changing new feature, as the app now gives people the power to customize their own algorithm for Reels, letting you remove topics you don't care about.
This new feature lets you take a peek behind the proverbial curtain of your algorithm, as the app not only communicates what you've 'been into' recently, but also shows you the AI-generated topics that it thinks you want to see content about.
You can certainly see the dystopian side of this, as while it's something that everyone has always been aware of, seeing it laid out so plainly in front of you lets makes you aware of the digital profile that these apps create for their users.
One screenshot, shared by Pop Base on X, details a user who has "been into creativity, sports hype, fitness motivation & skateboarding," with a number of topics present in the 'What you want to see more of' section like 'Sports', 'GRWM', and 'Thrifting'.
Not only can you add new topics to this section if you want to get into a new hobby or keep up to date with a certain interest, but you can also add topics that you're fed up of seeing or want to avoid outright.
Algorithms aren't perfect after all, and any sports fan is well aware of the frustration of being shown specific content for teams you don't support, simply because you're a fan of the sport in general.
It also appears as if you can see designated topics when viewing Reels as well now, so if you're watching a video that you don't care for, you can see what topic it's designated under and go into the settings to remove it.
"Wait they actually added a useful feature for one," wrote one user surprised at the benefits of this change, with another noting that this is "actually huge," as "giving users real control over the algorithm is long overdue."