Instagram's redesigned Explore tab is the newest social media time-sucker
Instagram is rolling out an entirely redesigned Explore tab.
The magnifying glass icon at the bottom of your screen will no longer lead to just a search bar, stories, and media you might like. Now, the Explore tab has a bevy of categories at the top of the screen to help you find the type of content you enjoy most.
The app will rely on artificial intelligence to organize the new suggested content. It's currently broken into 13 topics: For You, Sports, Science & Tech, Food, Humor, TV & Movies, Style, DIY, Travel, Nature, Art, Fitness, and Animals.
This redesigned Explore tab was announced at Facebook's developer conference F8 last month, but it is currently only available to a few users. The company's announcement also came with the promise of video chats and group video chats, which are also expected to rollout in the near future.
These "new" features are all reminiscent of things that already exist on other social media platforms: Its parent company Facebook's Discover feature, Snapchat's Discover page and group chats, YouTube's video streaming and tailored suggestions, and FaceTime's video chatting. Instagram, despite taking ideas that already exist on other platforms, is still thriving and is now reportedly worth $100 billion.
To browse the new categories, tap on any of them from within the Explore tab. Each one is still formatted with the three-tile rows and starts with a square video that automatically begins playing on the top right-hand side and takes up the space of about four photos. To anyone who uses the app all the time, it should look and feel very familiar.
All of the new categories except the For You tab include related hashtags on top of each section, such as #plywood under DIY. But these are harder to scroll, since the bar is so thin (you might just end up switching categories instead).
Categories can also be muted by holding a long tap on whichever section you don't care to have.
The new Explore tab design comes on the heels of IGTV introduced last week, and the new redesign should hit all accounts within the next few days.
