I have a theory: social media has already reached its limit and basically doesn’t know what to invent to keep its audience hooked with stories that don’t really add anything to the experience but give you the feeling of constant renewal. A perfect example is Instagram, which after going from focusing on photos to Stories and from there to Reels, now doesn’t know what the next move is (until it’s time to copy another social network, at least).
I’m going to grade you
Now, Instagram will allow adding notes in Reels and posts that will be deleted after three days. And you might be thinking, “What are you talking about?” Well, do you remember when a few months ago they allowed adding daily stories that appeared as thought bubbles, which we all used for a week and never touched again? Well, it’s the same technology, but applied to Reels and posts.
So, to make it completely clear: these are comments that will be outside the comment section and whose privacy you can choose: only your best friends or mutuals will be able to read them, and at any time -before the three days pass- you can delete them without any problem. The comment will appear as a sticker on top of the content, with the idea that users can use Instagram in more different private ways than with direct messages.
What Instagram users want is to see what their friends are saying about something without having to scroll down to the comments section? It could be. After all, a maxim of modern marketing is that people don’t know what they want until they have it. Luckily, the author will be able to decide to remove this update altogether and prevent strangers from filling their Reel or their post with private notes. My personal bet: completely forgotten in three weeks.