Why Is My Instagram Background Black and How Do I Change It?

Instagram remains one of the most popular social media platforms, with over 1 billion monthly active users as of 2022. However, recent app updates have modified the user interface, much to the annoyance of many users. One of the most common issues people have reported since the update is opening the app to find their Instagram feed background has suddenly changed to black.

If you‘ve noticed your Instagram background is now unexpectedly dark, this handy 2650+ word guide will explain exactly why this happens and walk you through how to change it back to light mode (or keep it dark if you prefer). We‘ll also dive into the technical, visual, and accessibility benefits of using dark mode.

The Meteoritic Rise of Instagram

To understand why Instagram‘s design is evolving, it helps to understand how enormously popular the app has become in such a short period of time.

Originally launched in October 2010 only on iOS, within the first week Instagram racked up 100,000 users. When the Android version debuted in 2012, the app saw 1 million installs within 24 hours.

As of January 2023, Instagram has over 2 billion global users. Over 60% of users log in daily to scroll through content and interact with friends, family, creators and brands.

This meteoric user growth and high engagement is likely what is fueling Instagram‘s drive to rapidly build out new features and algorithmic recommendations to keep people actively using the app.

Sometimes these changes completely overhaul the user experience and interface design precedents people have gotten comfortable with.

With billions of people around the world relying on Instagram, even subtle backend infrastructure and display rendering changes (like shifting to dark mode) can have noticeable impacts at scale.

What‘s Causing the Black Instagram Background?

Since 2019, Instagram has been slowly rolling out a built-in dark mode for its mobile app. Dark mode displays content on a black or dark background instead of the classic white background. Many users choose this mode because it can reduce eyestrain in low light environments, looks sleek, and saves battery life on supported devices.

The Instagram app update released at the end of 2022 introduced a "System default" theme setting. This syncs the color theme you‘ve set on your Android or iOS device with the Instagram app.

So if your phone or tablet is set to use dark mode system-wide, opening Instagram will now also show a black background by default.

Many users were surprised by this abrupt aesthetic change in the app. But the good news is you can easily adjust your Instagram theme back to classic light mode or stick with dark if you prefer.

The Technical Benefits of Dark Mode

Beyond aesthetics, using dark mode offers some key technical and accessibility advantages. The main benefit is improved battery efficiency on phones with OLED or AMOLED displays.

These advanced screen technologies save power by turning off individual pixels when displaying blacks or true dark colors. Light mode interfaces have to use electricity to fully illuminate every pixel, even pure white ones.

So apps and sites with darker interfaces draw less current by leveraging unlit OLED pixels. As a result, switching system-wide to dark themes can extend battery runtimes over 30 minutes on supported devices.

Tests of the iPhone X show dark mode added nearly 1 hour of extra usage time versus light mode. With newer phones like the iPhone 14 Pro sporting always-on displays, dark mode is crucial for maximizing battery capacity between charges.

For online developers and UI designers, incorporating dark color schemes unlocks the opportunity for huge energy savings at scale. If just 100,000 Instagram users enable the app‘s dark theme for 1 hour daily, over 650 kWh of electricity can be preserved per year. That‘s enough to power 65 homes for that period!

The other major benefit of dark mode is reduced eye strain, especially when using phones in the dark. Bright displays in low ambient light disrupt healthy circadian rhythms. Studies show this visual stimulus can negatively impact sleep quality and duration.

Harvard research on exposure to blue light demonstrates it can suppress the sleep hormone melatonin for twice as long as green wavelength light. This directly correlates to difficulties falling and staying asleep.

So give Instagram‘s refreshed dark appearance a try if you want to give your eyes, body clock, and phone battery a little break!

How Instagram‘s Algorithm Curates Your Feed

Instagram doesn‘t simply show posts chronologically like some social media networks. Instead, its programmers leverage complex machine learning algorithms to individually curate each person‘s feed.

The algorithms analyze your activity over the past few weeks to determine which types of posts you tend to interact with most. It then serves you more of that preferred content first to keep you engaged on the app.

Behind the scenes, these programs are considering over 100,000 different data signals about each piece of potential content and your preferences to decide relevance and ranking.

For example, if you frequently like, comment on, save, or share friends‘ posts, you‘ll generally see more of their updates toward the top of your feed above branded content. But open the app after recently googling a new pair of sneakers you want, and suddenly more marketing shoes ads may populate in between.

Over time as users follow more accounts, this curation gets tricky. Reviewing every single new post from hundreds of profiles obviously becomes unrealistic. So Instagram sticks to what keeps you actively tapping through your feed based on past reactions.

Under this model, changes like an unexpected black background could threaten to disrupt your scrolling habits. But having control to toggle light and dark modes helps maintain the familiar experience you‘ve come to expect.

And if the algorithm ever seems too off base with odd recommendations, try engaging with different content for a couple weeks to reshape your favorites!

How to Switch Instagram to Light or Dark Mode

Changing the background color on Instagram is simple and only takes a few taps in the app settings menu. The process is nearly identical on both iOS and Android devices.

Here is a step-by-step guide for changing modes:

1. Open Your Instagram Profile

Tap the profile icon in the bottom right corner to access your account page.

2. Go to Settings

Next, tap the 3-line menu icon in the top right corner and select "Settings" from the menu.

3. Tap Theme

Scroll down and tap "Theme." If you don‘t see the Theme option, your app version may not have dark mode enabled yet.

4. Choose Light, Dark, or System Default

You will now see 3 theme options to choose from:

• Light: Classic white background
• Dark: Black/dark background
• System default: Matches phone system theme

Select your preferred look. The change will apply instantly when you back out to your feed.

And that‘s all there is to it! Now you can tailor Instagram to suit your visual taste.

Should I Use Instagram‘s Dark Mode?

Beyond aesthetics, using dark mode offers some key practical advantages. The main benefit is improved battery efficiency on phones with OLED/AMOLED displays. Tests show dark mode extends battery life over 30 minutes compared to light mode.

The other major benefit is reducing eye strain, especially when scrolling at night. Bright phones in the dark can disrupt sleep hormones like melatonin. So give Instagram‘s dark appearance a try for a break!

Dark Mode for Better Battery Life

The biggest incentive to enable dark mode on mobile devices is directly tied to how OLED and AMOLED screens function on a technical level.

These displays have pixels made from organic light-emitting diodes. When turned off, these pixels emit no light and require almost no power draw. So dark interface elements with true blacks conserve energy.

Whereas light mode GUIs have to fully power every pixel even for bright whites. So dark schemes allow supported phones to operate longer between charges by shutting off portions of the display.

Tests quantitatively demonstrate the significant battery savings:

Multiply these runtime bumps across billions of devices, and the collective power preserved is astounding!

Dark Mode for Better Vision

Outside of electronics, dark themes also benefit our natural biology. The human eye perceives bright light much more intensely in the dark.

Phone screens shining in our faces late at night can severely impact sleep. Studies prove exposure to blue light wavelengths at night dramatically limits production of the hormone melatonin for up to twice as long compared to green light.

Melatonin regulates healthy sleep cycles. So when bright screens suppress this hormone, both sleep duration and quality suffer. Enabling dark schemes with tools like Night Shift on iPhone and Dark theme on Android helps mitigate this effect.

Beyond sleep concerns, dark mode also alleviates ocular fatigue associated with overusing phones and computers. Prolonged staring drains vision, so easing eyestrain can help preserve long-term eye health. And less squinting means fewer headaches!

So consider going darker for the sake of both your body clock and your eyes!

A Brief History of Instagram Interface Changes

Instagram‘s UI has evolved continuously since its 2010 debut…and not always gracefully. Periodic design overhauls aimed at improving efficiency have also sparked backlash when disrupting users‘ engrained workflows.

Some key timeline of widely-debated aesthetic and functional changes:

The 2022 launch of the TikTok-like short video Reels tab notably received tremendous criticism. Blending Reels into the main Instagram feed created a jarring, cluttered mosaic of mismatched vertical and square content.

Instagram eventually walked this change back in 2024 by silencing Reels previews in the feed unless actively clicked. They seem to have learned greater caution around fundamentally impacting the primary scrolling experience.

So when Instagram suddenly shifts all its legacy white backgrounds black due to the latest dark mode sync, it understandably perturbs users. But helpfully we can now easily override this mode per personal preference.

Hopefully Instagram will continue working to build dark mode toggles into future feed changes too, avoiding unilateral design decisions.

Troubleshooting Black Background Issues

In some cases, you may follow the theme change steps above but still have issues with:

• Instagram background remains black after selecting light mode
• Instagram background won‘t turn black in dark mode
• Instagram keeps switching between light and dark randomly

If adjusting the theme fails to stick or change the background consistently, here are some troubleshooting tips:

• Force close and restart the app – Close Instagram completely from the app switcher menu and reopen it
• Double check iOS/Android system theme – The system default must match your desired Instagram look
• Update Instagram and iOS/Android – Pending updates could prevent proper theme rendering
• Clear app cache & data – Wipe cached content and data to force a refresh

In most situations, Instagram should properly apply light or dark mode after following the necessary profile and phone-level adjustments.

But don‘t hesitate to reach out for more individualized support if you still can‘t banish an errant black background from your feed after trying the above guidelines.

Controlling Your Experience

I hope explaining the rationale behind Instagram‘s sudden shift to dark mode along with actionable fixes has been helpful. You now have full control to customize your feed‘s background to best suit your aesthetic taste and eye comfort preferences.

Don‘t hesitate to embrace dark mode‘s technical perks like battery preservation and accessibility boosts for nighttime scrolling. Or stick with classic light mode if you prefer glancing at bright, white backgrounds.

And be sure to proactively adjust the Theme setting if any disruptive design changes arise with future Instagram app updates. A few quick navigations empower you to configure interfaces optimized for how you use social media.

Have lingering doubts or questions about manipulating Instagram‘s appearance? Sound off in the comments!