>Instagram also announced last year it would be leaning harder into algorithmic recommendation of content. On Meta’s second-quarter earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted that Reels videos accounted for 20 percent of the time people spent on Instagram, saying that Reels engagement was “growing quickly” and that the company saw a 30 percent increase in the amount of time people spent engaging with Reels.

No, Mr. Zuckerberg, it's not because people are actually interested in reels. It's because people go on instagram to see photos posted by their friends, and their feed gets spammed with reels that are loosely related to something else they searched for or clicked on in the internet.

Pro-tip: Just because I bought my kids sneakers last week doesn't mean I want to scroll through endless videos of strangers doing basketball tricks.