Scrolling through your Instagram feed, there is still something you do on your own. However, with more and more people away from friends and family to help contain the spread of the new coronavirus, Instagram has rolled out a new shared browsing feature to help users feel, well, less isolated.
The new feature allows friends on video chat (even group chat) to view messages that one of them has been 'liked' or 'save' in their Instagram feed. It even allows hangout participants to view recommendations from other Instagrams.
It gives friends and family a way to talk about different posts by photo- and video-sharing, giving them a way to stay in touch.
How it works
Using Shared Browsing is very simple: head to Instagram Direct (the platform's direct messaging feature) by clicking on the 'paper airplane' icon in the top right corner of the app.
Then start a new video chat search or by selecting a contact in your inbox and then clicking on the video camera icon on this direct messaging page. Once you've started chatting, simply click the icon at the bottom of the panel to see all of the recently liked, saved, and Instagram recommendations for your channel.
The one you choose will appear on the screen for all participants in the video chat.
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That's not all
Not only will the new update roll out to all users — Instagram has begun highlighting more Covid-19 educational resources in the search tab, and is stepping up efforts to eliminate unofficial coronavirus content and accounts if it's not a trustworthy source.
Instagram is expanding sticker donations to other countries so users can search and request donations from in-kind and relevant nonprofits.
To help users practicing social distancing share stories, a 'stay at home' sticker will be placed on all posts online.
It's easy to see how co-browsing will become popular in the coming days, and those efforts are adding to Instagram's Covid-19 prevention initiative, which began about two weeks ago when the platform began listing posts from credible healthcare organizations at the top of its search tab.
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New feature