Each social media platform simultaneously plays imitator and innovator to keep the position of people’s favorite app. Improvements to Instagram’s algorithm make my reel feed more entertaining, but Meta’s data has so much untapped potential. Instagram can track and share more data than users could ever possibly need. Imagine if Meta capitalized on it. Yet, Instagram has tried to reduce the competitive nature of social media, such as offering options to hide like counts.
At its most wholesome, Instagram offers a way to check in on friends, share life updates, and entertain yourself. At its most toxic, Instagram feeds into primal competitive instincts and evades all privacy. Here are 10 features Instagram could implement to give people what they simultaneously crave and disdain—full data transparency on how people interact with profiles on Instagram.
- You’re being stalked!
A notification blast whenever someone searches your name and spends more than five seconds on your profile.
- Deep stalk alert:
An alarm whenever someone makes it more than one person deep in your account. Now they’ll know you found their best friend’s account tagged section to see their ex-partners.
- Monthly stalker report:
A list of your top searched profiles each month—a great time to reflect on your stalking habits and that high school crush you never got over.
- Unfollow notifications:
Let kids know they’re the expendable ones when you try to improve your ratio.
- Follower activity feed (revived):
Why wouldn’t you want to know when your ex-situationship likes 10 pictures of the person they told you was “just a friend?”
- Instagram Wrapped:
An annual review of the top 10 people you stalk, the top 10 people stalking you, hours wasted on Instagram reels, and the worst photos you were tagged in. Make social media toxic again.
- Instagram post view count:
No need to tell yourself people didn’t like your post because they didn’t see it. Now, you can see exactly who your haters are online.
- Rank stories by newest post:
Imagine always being one of the first likes on someone’s story. I know I want to see a former fling’s story six seconds after he posts it.
- Flashback Friday:
Each Friday, the algorithm automatically posts an archived picture or old Instagram story on your story. Let all your college friends know how weird you were in middle school.
- Pay-to-play profile views:
Pay $10 to view someone’s private profile…except they get notified. Nothing stays hidden from future employers now. Bye-bye, Bain.
Each proposition toes the line between terrifying and enchanting. People crave information, even when it could hurt them. The real innovation in social media updates is not fostering human connection — it’s praying on our hunger for knowledge and competition to engineer new digital addictions.
Hannah Davis ’25 (hannahdavis@college.harvard.edu) would probably delete Instagram if any of these features were released in real life.