Declutter Your Instagram Feed, Be Happier

Instagram keeps implementing new initiatives to help users with their mental health. They have conducted an experiment hiding the number of likes on a post, and have launched a new policy that prevents anyone under the age of 18 from seeing posts that promote weight-loss products. Now, Instagram has announced a way to curate your feed to make sure that you have a positive experience while scrolling. I mean how many times have you been scrolling your feed only to find yourself full of negative feelings like insecurity or jealousy? I know it happens to me all of the time. It's hard not to feel that way when you are inundated with endless pictures of seemingly perfect lives, bodies and accomplishments.

A spokesperson for Instagram recently told Glamour U.K.:

"Curating an Instagram feed that 'sparks joy' as Marie Kondo would say, is one way you can get inspired and feel positive this year."

If you live under a rock or have a terrible memory, Marie Kondo swooped into our Netflix ques last year and taught us how to purge the things in our home that no longer serve us so that we can feel true joy and peace. "Sparks joy" is kind of like her personal slogan.

Instagram launched a new feature to help you weed out the accounts that make you feel like garbage or that you have just lost interest in, while amplifying the accounts that make you happy. The new feature sorts the accounts that you follow into two categories- "Most Shown In Feed" and "Least Interacted With." With this new feature, you can see all of the accounts that you follow by category, making it easier for you to identify which accounts you want to keep and which ones you want to unfollow.

Here is how you can access this new feature:

1. Go to your Instagram profile and click "Following"
2. You will see categories including "Most Shown In Feed" and "Least Interacted With"
3. From there, you can manage the accounts that you follow by changing your follow status or by clicking the three dots to Manage Notifications or Mute the account
4. You also have the option to sort your follows by date, which makes it easier to pick out the accounts that you followed ages ago and are no longer interested in.

This feature is so awesome! I have tried to declutter my Instagram feed before just by scrolling through my "Following" list and quickly became frustrated. It is very overwhelming not only because of the number of accounts on my list, but some of the accounts I don't even recognize so I have to click on it to investigate. I am really excited to use this feature to clean house and freshen up my Instagram feed. And kudos to Instagram for trying to improve users mental health. I love seeing companies address mental health in a positive and constructive way.