Instagram unfollow notifications

Who your friends... aren't

Over the past year, I’ve embraced the fact that my primary social media accounts are not a viable way to stay connected with friends and family. Yes, most people probably use it this way, but I have a separate account for this purpose. I’ve found this to be a healthy way to compartmentalize the constant stream of notifications.

On any of my main accounts, I don’t take it personally if someone follows or unfollows me, because they don’t see much of “me”. They just see my memes. However, on my personal Instagram account, I caught myself feeling annoyed that someone unfollowed me (which one of you was it).

There’s a simple solution to my problem: unfollow notifications

Instagram could use their existing notification UI, it’d simply be the reverse of their follow notification. It seems like an obvious thing to implement, doesn't it?

The smallest things have outsized impacts. If this was to go live, many casual friendships would be torn apart overnight. You can no longer quietly opt out of seeing someone on the internet. It’d be so chaotic, albeit helpful for people who only want to follow someone who follows them.

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