Instagram Tests New ‘Status’ Display to Provide More Context on What Your Connections are Doing

Would this be a valuable addition to your Instagram usage?

Instagram is currently in the process of rolling out a new ‘profile status’ option to more users, which enables you to set a status notification on your profile that will remain active for 24 hours (unless you change it).

As you can see in these screenshots, posted by Testing Catalog, when you have access, the new status option will be displayed in your IG Direct messaging tab, beneath your username at the top of the screen, enabling you to choose from various status options to display to your connections. Your selected status is then displayed in both the Direct tab and on your profile, as shown in the last screenshot here.

Instagram has actually been testing the feature for some time, with the capacity to set a status flowing over from Instagram’s separate Threads app, which it shut down late last year.

Threads was designed to enhance the messaging experience with your closest connections, as part of Instagram’s larger push to capitalize on the popularity of messaging in the app, with an element of this being the capacity to set a status to let your connections know what you’re up to at any given time.

Threads actually pushed that further with auto-status, which, when enabled, would share an automatic status update, based on your location, battery life, movement, etc.

Instagram experimented with integrating your Threads status into the main app in 2020, which looked exactly the same as this new test.

Instagram further tested the same last year, just ahead of the Threads shut down, so it seems inevitable that eventually, all users will be able to update their status with these 24-hour settings, providing more insight to your connections as to what you’re up to at any given time.

Which could add something more to your IG Direct experience. Maybe. It’d interesting, I guess, to know when your friends are working, which could delay their response to your message, similar to the ‘Busy’ status’, while if you knew that your friends were celebrating, maybe that would help you also connect and find out what’s happening at any given time.

There’s some practical benefit here, and as noted, it’ll be interesting to see whether Instagram does eventually look to integrate the auto-status option from Threads into the main app as well.

Right now, the new status option is appearing for some users, as part of Instagram’s broader roll-out/test. We’ve asked Instagram for more information on its plans, and whether the feature will be made available to all users, and we’ll update this post if and when we hear back.