Instagram is testing a change that hides Stories from over-sharers

What you need to know

Instagram is working on a change that will limit how many Stories people see from individuals.
Only the first three Stories will appear by default.
People can tap to see all Stories if they want to.

Creators will need to be careful about how they share Stories moving forward.

Have you ever been watching Instagram Stories and been faced with someone who just won’t stop sharing? The social network is testing a change that will cut that out entirely, limiting the number of Stories that you see by default.

The change appears to be rolling out to a limited number of testers right now with Tecnoblog noting that those people see just three Stories from the people they follow — but they can tap a “Show All” button if they want to lay eyes on the all of them.

This is potentially a huge change for Instagram creators who can now thread up to 100 Stories together, creating an overarching narrative. While that will still be possible, it’s likely that only the first three Stories will be seen by a ton of people — vastly reducing the engagement on all subsequent posts.

Olha só como está. Pra ver todos tem de clicar no “Mostrar tudo” pic.twitter.com/cHrHL6enUD

— Phil Ricelle (@philricelle) May 17, 2022

As someone who has seen people post an excessive number of Stories in the past, this is a change I’m absolutely here for — but I can also see why creators could be wary of it. That could well be why Instagram is only testing the feature right now, rather than rolling it out to everyone. Instagram is already one of the best iPhone apps for watching and sharing short videos, despite its ongoing battle with TikTok. Whether this change will improve it or not will likely depend on whether you’re watching or posting content.