You need more friends...

I recently ran an experiment where I created a new IG account and only followed my closest friends… and the results were eye opening.

Some background:
1. Most people follow an average of 550 people. I follow 805.
2. Dunbars number states people can’t maintain more than 150 meaningful connections.

For this reason, I followed 54 people. 54 people who I would grab coffee with if they were in town, I would comfortably pick up my phone and call any day of the week, or I could post my last raw unedited 10 photos from camera roll without feeling anxious.

So why does my main account follow 805 people? Well, that’s exactly the issue. It’s because these platforms make money based on time in spent in-app, so they want you to scrolling and swiping as long as possible.

Part I is self inflicting.
Having an account since 2012 means 65 new follows every year, and it’s not really intuitive to unfollow people you haven’t interacted with in 2-3 or even 10 years. So it stacks up. Also worth mentioning some of the brands and musicians I like are peppered in there too.

Part II is on them (the platforms).
The new age platforms don’t want you to only follow your close friends. Even with my new account, when I first open the app, I’m being forced to review an infinite number of people to add. At first it was suggestions of people I knew, but I’ve ignored so many to hide this banner it’s showing randoms now. And I can’t get rid of the invasive banner. It shows up every time.

Wild right? The first content you see (under the suggestions to add) is more suggestions of more random content. Why? Why can’t it just be the content of the 54 people I followed?

They don’t want me to only have 54 friends, because if I’m the average user, my friends don’t post enough daily for me to doom-scroll in the app. This is why all four tabs (minus the new post button) default to explore / suggestions / algorithms.

They make it hard as possible to see my friends content that they want to suck me into adding more people, and watching random (albeit sometimes interesting) videos, while it takes me two taps to see actual friends posts only — which is a button most people don’t even know about, and they hide half the time. (Yup, if you know the button I'm talking about, tap Home again and see how the ⌄ icon dissapears

If updates were readily available you’d hop in and out within 2-3 minutes and get back to touching grass or enjoying the view of wherever you are, but they don’t want that.

Change is needed. People of all ages are feeling lonely. Suicide rates are higher than ever. Toxic masculinity all over these platforms is fueling violence and aggression in schools and communities, leaving people more disconnected and worsening the mental health crisis.

I don’t see it getting better.

This is why we’re launching Favs next month - the quickest way to see what people you care about are up to, without all the noise.