According to Instagram, Instants allows sending once-seeable photos to close friends or followers. Content will appear for 24 hours before disappearing, aiming for a natural sharing experience instead of meticulously edited posts like on traditional news feeds.
This feature was deployed globally after a pilot phase with a limited user group.
Technology experts believe that Instants is a combination of many ideas that were successful on Snapchat, BeReal and Locket.
The common point of these platforms is to focus on everyday moments, limit editing and create a closer feeling between users.
Unlike the carefully selected content style on Instagram today, Instants forces users to take photos directly with the camera integrated in the application.
Users cannot upload photos from the phone library or edit them with a filter. Although short text can still be added, photos taken almost remain in the original state.
Meta (the parent company that owns Instagram) said that the purpose of the feature is to encourage sharing moments that are happening, instead of well-prepared content like traditional posts.
Users can access Instants using a small photo icon in the Instagram inbox. After receiving photos, friends can respond with emoticons, send messages or take pictures of their own Instants to reply.
Instagram also added a mechanism to limit content copying when not allowing screenshots or screenshots for Instant photos received.
All Instant shares will be stored in private storage for up to one year. Users can also aggregate old Instants to repost as Instagram Stories. If sent by mistake, users can use the "return" button to recover the content before the recipient opens to view.
Instagram also allows temporary stopping Instant recipients from others by swiping in the inbox. Users can turn off notifications or block specific accounts if they do not want to be disturbed.
Notably, Meta is currently testing Instants as an independent application in some markets such as Spain and Italy. This shows that the company is considering expanding the feature into a separate platform if it receives positive feedback.
Analysts believe that Instants is Instagram's effort to bring the platform back to personal interactions between friends, after a long time being overwhelmed by celebrities, advertising and commercialized content.
However, some opinions suggest that Instagram may have been late when the trend of real-life photo sharing like BeReal is no longer booming as it was a few years ago, while Instagram Stories (the feature of sharing short photos or videos in presentation format, displayed separately on top of the news feed and disappearing automatically after 24 hours) has now also met most of the users' needs for quick updates.
