One thing that has always been clear is that Meta is always interested in evolving the social media platforms that the company has created. In December 2025, the company announced that one of its flagship platforms, Facebook, will be undergoing a series of changes that will seemingly make it more like Instagram.
For Facebook users, it is always interesting when the platform undergoes a major redesign, as it is set to do soon. However, excitement over Meta’s platform changes is likely to be muted and underwhelming. That is the case because the upcoming changes fail to address the major complaint users have about the current state of Facebook.
How Facebook Will Significantly Change in 2026
Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images
On December 9, 2025, Meta announced major changes that they have planned for Facebook in 2026. The most noteworthy way that Facebook is going to change is how its feed will look. The company is touting that the feed will look “smarter,” “cleaner,” and more “streamlined.” A gif that was included as part of the article shows that the feed does look nicer and more like one of Meta’s other platforms, Instagram.
Between everything from Facebook’s tab and its feed, the user experience looks like it will feel a lot less cluttered soon. Another huge change that will help make Facebook feel easier to navigate is an overhaul that is coming to image galleries. Instead of the previous format, galleries will now be presented in a grid that will make it easier to see several photos at the same time before choosing one of the images to enlarge. Facebook has also made it easier to like posts since users will soon be able to like posts simply by double-clicking. All of these changes combined contribute to Facebook’s new design feeling similar to Instagram.
Some of Facebook’s other features are set to improve soon. For example, search will also be presented in the grid format to make results easier to navigate. More importantly, there are plans to make it possible for people to choose a search option, then return to their results in the same place they left off, instead of being taken back to the top. That will be a welcome change.
Other changes that are coming to Facebook include making posting content easier by putting popular tools like tagging friends and adding music in a more prominent place. It also is worth noting that more tools will be added to streamline comments on posts and the resulting conversations. The final noteworthy change is that the redesign will make it easier for users to connect with others who have similar tastes.
Why Meta’s Planned Changes to Facebook Miss the Real Problem With the Platform
As part of Meta’s article announcing the upcoming changes to Facebook, the company made it clear that the redesign has two motivations. First off, Meta wants Facebook to become a bigger part of the social media conversation. Second, the company wants to “cut through the clutter” to improve users’ experiences.
To Meta’s credit, all of the announced upcoming changes to Facebook sound like they will be great and welcomed by the platform’s users. However, the truth is that none of them appear to address the real problem with Facebook, unless there are more details to come. To prove that, all anyone has to do is look at the complaints that real Facebook users have about the platform.
The consensus among users has long been that Facebook feeds are dominated by ads and content that the platform thinks users want to see. Most users complain that they rarely see posts from the people and pages that they actually follow. Given that Facebook was always the platform that people have used to reconnect with old friends and that kid from their 3rd grade class, the platform hasn’t been giving users what they have wanted for a long time. Until that changes, it is hard to see how the platform could rebound in popularity.
Instead of becoming more like Instagram, the quickest way to have helped Facebook would have been to copy an aspect of X. Giving the users the ability to choose from a “For You” and “People You Follow” feed option seems like the perfect solution to Facebook’s real problem.
