Instagram bug caused horizontal feed to briefly roll out

Did your Instagram feed briefly change to a horizontal feed earlier today? If so, you're not alone.

Many Instagram users saw a new feed UI today that, rather than the vertically scrolling interface that they're used to, instead gave them a horizontal feed that scrolled their posts left to right. The new horizontal feed received a lot of criticism following its rollout, and Instagram quickly reverted back to the vertical feed shortly after.

You can see the horizontal feed in action in the video below.

I have the new Instagram horizontal scroll interface. I’m sure this will not be met with any backlash WHATSOEVER. But seems maybe intended to reduce mindless vertical scrolling? cc @mosseri comments at the end pic.twitter.com/fwmtbfjFaf

— Alex Heath (@alexeheath) December 27, 2018

Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, has since confirmed that this horizontal feed was supposed to be a "very small test", but it was rolled out more broadly than expected. The change should already be rolled back, and if you're still seeing the horizontal feed, you should be able to revert by restarting your Instagram app.

Instagram, and many other mobile apps, have users scroll vertically to navigate through the UI, so the switch to a horizontal feed in Instagram would be a huge change. It's unclear why Instagram would want to make this switch to a horizontal feed, but one possibility is that it could slow users down and get them to spend just a bit more time on each post rather than just quickly flicking through their feed.

What do you think of this horizontal Instagram feed? Did it appear for you today?

Instagram bug caused horizontal feed to briefly roll out originally posted at http://phonedog.com