Instagram in 2026
Recently, I've been thinking about Instagram. What it used to be, and what it is now.
I wish Instagram was 2012 Instagram.
— Chris 💻 (@chrishannah) February 8, 2026
In the good days of Instagram, people shared over-filtered square-cropped insights into their daily life. It was a real social network. You followed people, usually your friends, and you can see what they were up to, they can see what you are up to. And you generally comment on each others posts.
YouTube recommended this 13 year old video from Casey Neistat about how to use Instagram, and that certainly made me feel more nostalgic about it used to be.
There are many reasons why Instagram isn't the same anymore. Part of it is down to the social media landscape, and habits of social media users. As I think we've now become a generation of consumption.
But part of it is down to the evolution of Instagram as a platform. Before you edited and shared photos, viewed other peoples photos, and exchanged likes and comments. Now you've got algorithms dictating your For You feed, Reels, and Explore page.
If you want to share something, you don't use the most prominent button in the tab bar, you tap on a button on the top-right of the screen. Which directs you to share a Story. A fleeting moment, that someone will quickly tap past as they're viewing the stories from all the influencers and brands they follow.
That's where I think it went wrong for Instagram, when brands joined in and "Influencers" started to pop up. For me, that's when Instragram started to become less about people sharing photos with people.
I want to start using Instagram like those days, posting more personal moments, less "perfect" shots, more just general life. And to "the grid", instead as a fleeting story. But I do feel that even if I persevered, Instagram simply may not be the place for that anymore.
If you want to find me on Instagram, you can do so: @lordchrishannah[1].
The Lord title is a bit of an inside joke, I was once gifted one of those 1ft x 1ft squares of land in Scotland with the title. ↩︎