An Instagram Algorithm Reset Made This User's Feed Worse, Not Better

A Globe and Mail journalist wiped their Instagram algorithm clean to start over — and found the rebuilt feed delivered worse content than the one they'd ditched. The experiment is a useful data point for creators and social teams who assume a reset fixes a feed that's gone off the rails.

The piece, published under the headline "I reset my Instagram algorithm for a fresh start. What I saw in my new feed was way worse," walks through what happens when a user erases Instagram's accumulated picture of their interests. The short version: the app doesn't hand you a neutral feed. It starts guessing again, and the early guesses skewed toward low-quality, engagement-bait material.

What does a reset actually do?

Instagram builds its recommendations from what you watch, like, search and linger on. Resetting that history — an option Meta offers under account settings — tells the system it knows nothing about you. The Globe and Mail reporter found the fresh feed leaned hard into generic, broadly appealing posts as the algorithm worked to relearn their tastes from scratch.

That matches how recommendation systems generally behave. Cold-start users get mainstream, high-engagement content first, and personalization sharpens only as the app collects new signals.

What does this mean for practitioners?

For everyday users, the takeaway is simple: a reset trades a stale feed for a noisy one, at least temporarily. You'll likely wade through junk before the algorithm re-tunes to your actual interests.

For marketers and creators, there's a sharper lesson. If reset users land in a cold-start pool of generic content, posts with broad, immediate appeal have an edge with those viewers in the weeks after a reset. Niche content has to wait for the algorithm to rebuild context before it finds its audience.

It's also a reminder that "fix your feed" advice circulating on social media often overpromises. One user's experiment isn't a controlled study, but it cuts against the popular claim that wiping your history reliably improves what you see.

The reset option itself remains available to any Instagram user through account settings, and Meta hasn't signaled any change to how that process works.