Instagram Comment Date Calculation

Description

A tiny Instagram UX detail that keeps bothering me: When I see a comment timestamp like 62w or 383w, I don’t read it as time. I read it as math. Shorthand works for recent activity: 2h · 3d · 2w But after a point, weeks stop being useful. 383w is not easy to scan. 7y is. So this feels less like a design choice and more like a UX miss. Good timestamps should reduce thinking, not create tiny conversion tasks in the user’s head. A better flow would be: hours → days → weeks → months → years YouTube handles this better. Instagram comments still make old timestamps feel strangely unreadable. 📌 Small detail. Real friction. Is this a design choice, or bad UX?

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