Instagram continues to dominate as our favourite social media platform for sharing the more curated parts of our lives, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t serious about the lighter side of things, either. Since introducing Instagram Stories in 2016, a feature that is remarkably similar to the base function of Snapchat, users have grasped on wholeheartedly. Now, in their latest update, Instagram are expanding the stories feature, and coming along with it is the biggest change to user profiles since 2013.
The new addition is similar to Snapchat’s Memories feature; once the Stories Archive setting is enabled, Instagram automatically downloads your Stories to your archive, where users can then choose to share the old stories publicly under Story Highlights. These highlights can be further broken down, so if you routinely tell stories on a similar theme, they can all be published together. Story Highlights are published directly to your profile, and their inclusion gives Instagram a whole new look.
Instagram has always allowed users to download and save their own stories, though that always required the foresight that your particular story was a memory you might actually want to keep forever. The feature has been introduced to alleviate the apparent anxiety users have been feeling about losing their stories. It marks a major shift in Instagram’s updating routine, which has seen a marked increase since the introduction of Stories, with the Story Highlights tab a big change to profiles.
The update has officially rolled out to all users, so it looks like Instagram is about to get a lot more candid.