Instagram wants to force you to stop doomscrolling — in a way users are not happy with.
The social media platform is testing “ad breaks” that will make the user stop and look at an ad for a certain period of time before they can continue scrolling.
Some users have taken to X, formerly Twitter, and Reddit to report that they have seen the feature on their accounts, and Instagram spokesperson Matthew Tye confirmed to The Verge that the test is indeed happening.
Meta’s Instagram already shows sponsored ads and posts within the content you’re scrolling through on both the home feed and reels — but the unskippable ads, similar to YouTube’s platform, can be disruptive, and some users are calling it “garbage.”
“NEW GARBAGE FEATURE IS BEING TESTED,” one Reddit user titled a thread about the ad breaks.
“Let it be known to any Instagram executive here, this is a horrible decision if you go through with it,” the person wrote in the Instagram sub-Reddit page. “I am already sick of the amount of ads that Instagram shows but this? This is next level.”
They continued, “First these companies implement fast scrolling and instant dopamine hits, made the human attention span worse than a goldfish and now they want to change that because it damaged their own ad views? I say no.”
The Redditor was presented with the ad break when scrolling through posts on the home feed. They explained that after a certain amount of time scrolling, an “ad break” icon appeared at the bottom of the screen with a timer that would tell you how long you have to look at the ad until you can start scrolling again.
Someone on X shared that “the app legit stopped me from scrolling past this ad which is just a bonkers move to me.”
When they clicked the info button for an explanation, they were met with a window that said, “Ad breaks are a new way of seeing ads on Instagram. Sometimes you may need to view an ad before you can keep browsing.”
Another person on Reddit declared that this update would be the “last straw” for them with Instagram. “I could stand the plethora of ads sprinkled throughout the entire app already, but unskippable? Gtfo,” they wrote.
“Meta has top tier UX designers, did they not do any research on this before pushing it onto the public?” someone commented.
“This is gonna piss a lot of people off,” another said.
It’s unclear if and when the feature will roll out to all users, but Tye told The Verge that Instagram would “provide updates should this test result in any formal product changes.”