Instagram Now Lets You Leave Comments on Stories
Instagram has a clear division between posts and stories. The first ones stay open forever (or until you manually delete them) and are usually reserved for photos and videos that you want people to view again. On the other hand, stories disappear after a day and are a fun way to share quick updates without having to go through the entire post.
This has been the dynamic for many years and it has worked well. You can easily browse through someone’s stories and even send them a message if you find a particular upload interesting enough. However, with posts, you can leave comments for everyone to see and start a conversation that can last as long as the post exists on that person’s page.
This week, however, Instagram appears to be looking to blur the lines between the two types of uploads: In a post on Threads , the company revealed that Stories now have a comments section. This doesn’t mean private comments will disappear: you can still click the “Send Message…” text box and share a thought or reaction in private messages. But now you can share a public comment that will remain active as long as the story itself lives, and you can also view other people’s comments.
The feature is just the latest in a string of recent Instagram updates: Last week , the company introduced three new features , including the ability to add text and stickers to posts; adding new fonts and animations to the text for stories; and increasing the carousel photo limit from 10 to 20. A week earlier, Instagram introduced Profile Music , which allows you to set a song to your profile that other people can view.
How comments work on Instagram stories
This feature is active at the time of writing this article. I had to force quit Instagram and restart it before I saw it myself.
First, click on someone’s story. Everything will look mostly the same, but notice the new comment icon in the bottom left corner. Instagram may even bring this feature to your attention the first time you tap a story after the change. Click on the icon: The first time you click, you’ll see a pop-up explaining how comments work and that comments are visible to anyone viewing the story. Close the popup, enter a comment, click the blue arrow, and you’re done.
If you don’t see a comment icon, the user may have comments turned off on stories, or at least turned off for people they don’t follow. By default, this feature only allows people to comment when they follow you. You can customize these settings yourself in the Instagram app settings: Go to your profile, tap the hamburger menu icon, then go to Settings & Actions > Comments . In the “Comments on a Story” section, you can select “Everyone” , which will allow all users to leave comments; People you follow by default; or Off , which disables this feature completely.