Overnight, Instagram launched several updates, including one called Quiet Mode which encourages people to set healthy boundaries with their Instagram friends and followers, letting them know when they’re unavailable for a certain period and won’t be responding to DMs or comments.
When someone enables Quiet Mode, their followers will see an “in quiet mode” status on their profile. All notifications will be muted and an auto-reply will go out when contacted.
The second update is yet another tweak to help us see the content we actually want to see. People can now hide multiple pieces of content in “Explore” at once, right from the Explore page, without needing to click on each post individually. The Hidden Words tool has also been updated. It will continue to protect people from seeing scammy DM requests and comments, so users can hide recommended posts with certain words, emojis, or hashtags in the caption.
Parents will also find updated parental controls. Parents will now be able to view their teen’s Instagram account settings, including privacy and content defaults and controls. They will also receive a notification if their teen updates a setting or any accounts their teen has chosen to block to help parents and teens chat about the changes together.
Related: Instagram Is Throwing a ‘Notes’ Feature At the Wall, Hoping SOMETHING Will Stick
Related: Meta’s Ray-Ban Stories Sunnies Now Let You Send Messages and Take Calls on Whatsapp
Instagram said in a release these new features complement existing ones designed to make the platform a safe and healthy space. Existing features helping to do so include Take a Break, which helps remind people to take some time away from scrolling, Sensitive Content Controls that let users decide how much sensitive content they’d like to see presented in their feed, and nudges that encourage teens to switch to a different topic if they’re repeatedly looking at the same type of content on Explore.
Quiet Mode will be available to everyone in Australia and New Zealand, the US, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Canada from January 20.
Last year, Meta announced a slew of new Instagram features including Paid Subscriptions, Dual and Remix, Notes and Stars. Many of them have yet to come to light.
Keep your squad updated on @Instagram with new features — share what’s on your mind with Notes ?, save posts to a shared profile the whole crew will love ?and more: https://t.co/Wa7n100xPF pic.twitter.com/e5UUOXdBr4
— Meta (@Meta) December 13, 2022
Most recently, in November 2022, it shared that it would let creators on Instagram be able to create their own NFTs and then sell them directly to fans, both on and off Instagram. The update would give creators access to a toolkit that’ll help them create, showcase and sell NFTs.
Read more stories from The Latch and subscribe to our email newsletter.
