Instagram looks different? Welcome to the murky world of 'dark patterns'
Widespread criticism from Instagram users of the latest version of the app raises the question: Why did they change it?
One answer is for the image and video sharing app to be more like its main rival, TikTok, which has grown its user base more rapidly.
TikTok is purely video, so Instagram is heading there too.
“We’ve been trying to make Instagram better through video,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in a video last week.
But the TikTok competition and the pivot to video still don’t account for all the changes.
Why is it so hard to mute videos now?
Why is it no longer possible to quickly and smoothly scroll through your feed?
The answers to these questions lie in behavioral economics, app design, and the bleak world of “dark patterns”.
What is a dark pattern?
Dark patterns are all ways websites, apps, and other user interfaces are designed to intentionally obscure, mislead, coerce, and/or trick website visitors and app users into making unwanted choices.
A UK-based user experience consultant, Harry Brignull, came across the term in 2010, while studying low-cost airline websites.
More than a decade later, the idea of dark patterns has become commonplace.
“When I came up with the dark pattern idea, I thought it was just a special thing that was used sometimes. I thought I was really smart to pay attention to it,” says Brignull.
“And now it’s everywhere.”
Some subtle dark patterns, some very clear.
When it’s so easy to sign up for an account but hard to cancel, that’s what Mr Brignull calls a “cockroach motel” — easy to get in and hard to get out.
When a sales website puts a countdown clock on an offer to speed up customer decision making, it’s also a dark pattern.
Many are evil, but not all. When supermarket websites remind you of what groceries you bought last time, and haven’t bought this time, it’s a dark pattern — but it also helps a little.
Above all, our daily lives are constantly shaped by dark patterns.
A recent report found 83 per cent of Australians had a negative experience caused by a dark pattern that prompted them to spend more than they wanted to, or accidentally signed up for something.
Major social media platforms are among the best at exploiting this fraudulent technique, Brignull said.
“This software company has a team of data scientists and designers who all work together to optimize all the numbers,” he said.
“These companies are incentivized to use manipulative techniques.”
Is this why it’s harder to mute Insta videos?
Mostly yes.
To recap, the new version of Instagram has more videos, more ads and suggested posts, snap scrolling instead of continuous scrolling, and stretches content to the edges of the screen.
Along with this, it is a little more difficult to mute or unmute the video. Before you could tap a video to mute it, it will now pause the video.
An article earlier this week suggested some of these changes appear to be “dark patterns lifted from TikTok.”
Mr Brignull generally agrees. Making it difficult to mute audio, he says, is “a bit user-friendly, and business-friendly.”
Video with sound on is more engaging, which means users are more likely to watch it, he said.
The switch from smooth continuous scrolling to fast scrolling, so users switch between videos and be forced to pay more attention to each, is also designed to increase video views, he said.
“Looks like this will increase the views for each video.”
But what is good for the character is not necessarily popular among the viewers themselves.
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That’s especially true for apps that are more than a decade old and have more than a billion users.
A petition started three days ago to “make Instagram Instagram again” has more than 100,000 signatures and endorsements from famous users like Kylie Jenner.
Critics say the photos they want to see are buried by the videos they want the algorithm to watch.
Nothing new: Every time Instagram updates its platform, some users complain, and ask to return to regular photo sharing.
There is a certain irony in Instagram influencers expressing nostalgia for when the platform was less commercially minded.
After all, Instagram must continue to look for ways to compete with TikTok without alienating existing users, Brignull said.
“I think they realized TikTok works really well and video is a great medium to run ads and sell ads that perform well.”
“They are under constant pressure to improve performance.”
Users ‘turn more to video over time’: Instagram
On Tuesday, responding to criticism from users, Instagram head Adam Mosseri posted a video “to clarify some things”.
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First, he says, change is “a test for some percentage of people out there.”
“It’s not good yet, and we have to take it to a good place if we’re going to send it to the rest of the Instagram community.”
That may be true, but Instagram has been testing the new full-screen version since at least May, and seems to have rolled it out to more users since then.
The shift to video, he said, would not reverse.
“If you look at what people are sharing on Instagram, it shifts more to video over time,” he said.
So the changes will probably stick around, despite the protests.
Nick Johnson, a behavioral economist at QUT, said people would get used to the change.
“People don’t like change, but also people tend to adapt quickly,” he said.
Brendan Markey-Towler, a behavioral economist in Brisbane, agrees.
“I think it’s a bit of laziness for people who don’t like changes to apps.”
Mr Brignull preferred to wait and see.
“It’s always really annoying when a product gets replaced under your feet,” he says.
“All social media companies use some form of manipulation to get you to do something.
“Over the next few weeks we’ll see if it— [new] better performing version.
“Then we’ll be able to judge for ourselves how deceptive or not it is.”
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