PhotoMIX-Company / Pixabay
New & non-regular Twitter users might not know this, but back in its early days, Twitter timeline used to show tweets in chronological order. The implication of this was that whenever you opened Twitter, you would be seeing the newest tweet at the very top of your feeds & to see the older ones you simply had to scroll down.
However, around 2016, Twitter decided to switch to what is called a ‘Curated Timeline’. What this meant for users was that the tweets displayed on your timeline were now determined by algorithms that aimed to show you the tweets you most likely cared about the most.
Of course, that seemed like the right thing to do back then since Facebook & Instagram had earlier dumped the chronological order of feeds as well. But there were consequences, & the most obvious was the fact that you could miss important tweets simply because Twitter didn’t think you’d have wanted to see them. This was just one among a number of other downsides of curated timelines.
Thankfully, Twitter’s new update now makes it possible for users who prefer to switch back to the chronological timeline arrangement to do so. With this setting, you will be able to see all the tweets from everyone you follow in the order in which they were posted as against the curated alternative.
How to switch to Twitter chronological timeline mode
Whether you are using the Twitter app on Android or iOS device, the process of setting this up is identical. The same rules also apply when you access the platform from your browser.
Step 1: Open the app & navigate to your Home tab. This is the birdhouse at the bottom-left area of your screen
Step 2: Tap on the Sparkle icon at the top right corner of the screen in the window displayed. Here you should see an option that says “Home shows you top Tweets first” if you have been using the Curated timeline.
Step 3: Look for the “see the latest tweets” option & tap it. Your timeline should immediately switch to the Chronological order once you choose this option.
Step 4: To confirm that this change has been made, you will see the header will change to “Latest Tweets”
If you’d like to switch back to the curated timeline option later you can go through the same process & re-select “top tweets” again. If this process does not work then you most likely aren’t using the updated version of the Twitter app. You can head over to App store of Play Store to update your app to the latest version.
