The Mute feature will allow users to temporarily unfollow an Instagram account, whereas the platform is testing displaying a ‘You’re all caught up’ mid-feed message so that users know when to stop scrolling.
Instagram is rolling out a new ‘Mute’ feature for its users, which will allow them to mute posts, stories or both from other accounts. Additionally, following up on its promise of helping users with their digital well-being, the company is also testing a new ‘You’re all caught up’ feature that informs users when they have seen every post from the last 48 hours. Starting with the ‘Mute Posts’ option, it will show up when one hits the “…” button on a post, along with the ‘Mute Posts and Story’ option. For helping users with the FOMO, TechCrunch reports that Instagram is testing a mid-feed alert, which reads, “You’re All Caught Up – You’ve seen all new post from the past 48 hours.”
About the new Mute feature, muting an account doesn’t mean that the user has unfollowed them, even though it is a sort of soft-unfollow. The company says that this feature will enable a user to create a more personalised Instagram feed. It should be noted that one will still be able to see all posts from a muted account by navigating to their profile page and the user will still get notified about the comments or posts they are tagged in. A muted account’s owner won’t be notified of the user muting them and they can be unmuted at the user’s will.
Instagram says in its blog post, “To mute an account, tap the … menu in the corner of the post. From there, you can choose whether to mute posts or mute posts and stories from an account. You can also mute posts and stories by pressing and holding on a story in your tray, or from a profile.” The feature is somewhat similar to Facebook's "snooze" feature for timeline posts, however, it doesn't expire after a set amount of time. The Mute feature will be rolled to users over the coming weeks.
Instagram’s new algorithmic feed is a departure from the previous chronological feed and as a result, users can easily engage in hours of mindless passive media consumption, which research suggests is unhealthy for an individual. The new digital well-being feature has been confirmed by Instagram, however, it’s not known when this new feature will be rolled out broadly. Instagram confirmed to TechCrunch that it’s testing this feature but, “It declined to give details about how it works, including whether the announcement means you’ve seen literally every post from people you follow from the last two days, or just the best ones that the algorithm has decided are worth showing you.“
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Shubham Sharma
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