Instagram and TikTok both thrive on short-form content; many creators post the same videos to both platforms. But given the choice between watching the same video on Instagram or TikTok, I’d choose TikTok all day, every day, and it’s because of these key features.
Instagram’s Video Player Needs an Upgrade
If you spend as much time as I do on social media apps, you start to notice the little things, and what I’ve noticed about Instagram is that it has a pretty terrible video player. I’ll explain why.
If you strip down a video player to its essentials and toss out all the bits and bobs, what button do you think is absolutely essential? I should hope the answer is the pause/play button. Practically every video player has one because it is a basic expectation that you should be able to interrupt your watching to do something else.
However, for some reason, the pause functionality is absent on Instagram—or rather, it’s been implemented in such an asinine way.
You’ll find that there’s no pause button when you’re watching reels. Instead, if you want to stop a reel, you have to hold down on the screen with your finger and keep it there—which, in my opinion, defeats the entire purpose of a pause button. I’m pausing because I need to attend to something else at the moment. How am I supposed to do that if one of my hands is hostage to the screen?
That’s not all, though. I have tons of pet peeves about the Instagram video player. There’s the fact that when you’re watching a reel on your feed, and you accidentally tap on it and open it in fullscreen, any attempt to return to the regular view restarts the reel.
Instagram’s video player is also just less capable. This is in contrast to TikTok, which has tons of cool features in its video player. For starters, there’s playback speed, which lets you watch long videos in a fraction of the time. You can also enable auto-scroll if you’re busy with your hands but still want to browse TikTok. There’s a picture-in-picture mode that lets you watch TikToks while you’re doing other things. Not to mention, you can download TikTok videos, but you can’t download reels.
Where’s Instagram’s Filter by Popularity?
When I find a creator I love, I go to their page and binge their content. The problem is, not all of it is as good as what got me hooked in the first place.
On TikTok, there’s an easy solution to this problem. You can go to the creator’s profile and use the popularity filter to sort through the videos. This will place the most popular videos at the very top, so you can binge away on the best content they have to offer.
On Instagram, there’s no such option. You have to manually scroll through and keep an eye on the view counter to find the best videos, which is just way too much work.
TikTok’s Algorithm Is Still Unmatched
TikTok’s algorithm is king in the social media world. It’s spot on at identifying your preferences and serving up videos that you’ll love most of the time. It’s so good, in fact, that it’s inspired phrases like “My For You Page didn’t let me down”—which is something people say to express that the quality of content they are served is sublime.
TikTok’s algorithm is so good that you could be watching a video detailing someone’s experience, and then, a couple of scrolls later, you’re getting an alternate POV of the same situation.
Instagram’s algorithm, on the other hand, isn’t quite as talented. The suggested reels can be hit or miss; my Explore page tends to hyper-fixate on one thing, and I get served a surprising number of bizarre AI-generated videos.
Instagram Needs a Watch History For Reels
Until very recently, Instagram did this really annoying thing called the “rug pull” where it would play a video when you opened the app while loading up another in the background. Then, when the new video was loaded up, it would play it (usually when you were halfway through the original video and already invested), and yet the original video into the Instagram archives, never to be found again.
After suffering through this countless times, I tried to get around the problem by finding the video I needed in my Watch History, only to discover that no such feature existed (at least, not on demand). The closest you can do is view what videos you’ve liked, but the rug pull barely gave me enough time to do that.
When I tried TikTok, I was shocked at how easy it was to see your Watch History. With just a couple of clicks, you can review every video you’ve ever watched on the app —meaning I never have to spend several minutes hunting down one particular video.
I Need Playlists on Instagram for My Favorite Content
Sometimes, I’ll come across content on TikTok that’s part of a series. The problem is, I’ll land halfway into the story with no idea of the backstory.
Hunting down the earlier videos in the series can be difficult and time-consuming, but TikTok makes it so that you don’t have to. Creators can organize videos in a series into playlists, so you can just watch the whole playlist from top to bottom without trying to find the next video.
Instagram is not as seamless. There are no playlists, and too many times, I’ve found myself in the profile section of creators sorting through captions, trying to find part 5 of a 50-part video series.
Instagram Search Needs To Get Better
One of my favorite things about TikTok over Instagram is its amazing search function. I can’t count the number of times I’ve entered some vague keywords into the TikTok search bar trying to find a specific video, and somehow TikTok miraculously understands my intention and serves up the right video.
TikTok’s search is so accurate that people are even using it to find their type, and from what I’ve seen, it’s been pretty spot-on so far.
It’s not just the search bar, though; there’s also the little search box at the bottom of your videos and the blue search comments that provide more context to the video you’re watching.
For example, the other day I was watching a video about aerated water and why it’s dangerous, all while having no clue what aerated water is. But right there in the bottom search bar was a search term already loaded up for “what is aerated water,” and clicking it took me straight to an explainer video that described what it was.
In comparison, Instagram’s search is pretty lackluster. I can barely get it to find the reels I want, even when I add in all the right keywords and let’s not even talk about Meta AI in the search bar, which makes everything 10x harder without any practical benefit.
Instagram Needs to Fix Its Refresh Problem
Instagram does this annoying thing where it refreshes unprovoked and causes me to miss my reels. (and remember, there’s no Watch History) I can barely switch between different apps without Instagram auto-refreshing and banishing whatever reel I’m watching into the void.
TikTok, on the other hand, is more consistent. I can pause a video and minimize the app and still return to the same content several minutes later.
I like Instagram, but I need to step up if it wants to remain competitive. It’s especially important, considering that TikTok might get banned, and it might be my only recourse.
But then again, maybe I spend too much time on social media apps, and this is a sign to tone it down. If you’re in the same boat, here are a few tips that can help you reduce your social media usage for real.