Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Social Media
  3. Mobile
  4. News

Instagram is about to start fiddling around with your profile page

Add as a preferred source on Google

If you drop by your Instagram profile over the next few weeks and notice that stuff has been switched around, don’t worry — your account hasn’t been hacked. It’s just Instagram testing out some new designs.

The popular photo-sharing app said on Wednesday that it’s planning to tweak the design of the profile page so you can, in the company’s own words, “better express yourself and more easily connect with the people you care about on your profile.”

Recommended Videos

In a post outlining the upcoming testing, Instagram said that you may see some features switched around on your profile page, including “changes to icons, buttons, and the way you navigate between tabs, which we hope will make profiles easier and cleaner to use.”

A glance at the provided examples (below) suggests it’s considering moving the user description to a higher position on the display, while changing the size and location of the follower/following counts to make them less prominent. It could also include tabs for shopping and IGTV.

Instagram

The Facebook-owned company said it’s been working on the changes for a while and plans to test them in stages, and in different combinations, in the coming weeks, so keep your eyes peeled for any alterations as the trial rolls out.

“We’ll continue to experiment and update the experience as we learn from your feedback,” Instagram said in its post.

The work on redesigning profiles comes amid a busy time for Instagram as it makes a number of changes to its service. Just a few days back, it revealed it was taking steps to purge the platform of fake followers, comments, and likes in a bid to bolster the authenticity of activity on the app.

It has also introduced more ways to shop via Instagram, and partnered with Shazam to let you easily share music tracks to Instagram Stories. It has even introduced a time-management tool for ‘grammers who have a niggling feeling they might be spending just a bit too much time on the app each day.

Just getting to grips with Instagram? Then check out our informative guide on how to use it like a pro, and another revealing lots of different ways you can make some cash out of it. But if it all gets too much and you’ve grown tired of the app, then check out this guide on how to delete your Instagram account in just a few taps.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Reddit is ending anonymous browsing on old Reddit, and longtime users are not happy
Reddit's old interface is getting a login requirement, and its long term future looks uncertain.
Reddit

If you have been quietly browsing old.reddit.com without logging in, that option is going away. Reddit just announced it will require everyone to log in to use old.reddit.com, with the change landing sometime over the next month. A Reddit admin broke the news on the platform, calling it part of a push to tighten how automated systems get into the site.

Why is Reddit locking down the old interface?

Read more
TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube are failing kids with broken safety features, research finds
Over half of social media child safety features don't work as advertised.
a boy using iPhone

Social media platforms have spent years telling parents their children are safe online. New research suggests those assurances don't hold up. A report from the Cybersafety Research Center tested 86 child safety features across TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube. Only 35 worked as promised, and the rest were broken, buried in settings, or missing entirely.

Which social media platforms performed the worst on child safety?

Read more
Yet another research proves TikTok injury advice is just downright bad
Your knee should not be taking rehab instructions from viral TikToks
TikTok

We've already heard a lot about the negative impact of social media, like how it keeps kids hooked to screens. But one of its emerging problems is the terrible medical advice being shared on the platform. The platform is often used for new learning dance routines or a new recipe, but it's also being used to share health-related advice from non-professionals.

A new study led by researchers at Université de Montréal has assessed TikTok videos about anterior cruciate ligament rehabilitation exercises, and the result is not exactly reassuring. The team looked at 106 videos found through the search term “ACL rehab exercises,” including 55 posted by ordinary users and 51 posted by health care professionals.

Read more