Study Finds Social Media Ads are Getting Harder for Users to Detect
Social media platforms like Instagram are changing the way they show ads, making them harder for users to notice. Instead of the old-style banners that were easy to recognize, ads now blend into the feed and look like regular posts. They use high-quality images, humor, storytelling, and design that feels natural, which makes it difficult for people to tell the difference between real content and promotions. A recent study led by Maike Hübner from the University of Twente in the Netherlands tested how well Instagram users could identify ads. The researchers asked 152 volunteers to scroll through simulated Instagram feeds…