Did You Share a Chin Close-Up? What to Know About Instagram Instants.

Instagram’s new feature blasts photos to your mutual followers or close friends, immediately.

Lydia Prior knew that something had gone wrong with her Instagram this week when she got an unexpected notification: a follower had liked her instant.

Ms. Prior, a full-time content creator in Hertfordshire, England, is no stranger to curating Instagram grid posts, stories and even the occasional repost. But what was an instant? She had never heard of it.

She frantically clicked on the notification, thinking, “Oh no, what have I done?”

On the app, she was greeted by a nightmare: a half-dozen unflattering selfies accidentally shared with hundreds of her followers.

“I’ve sent six pictures of my double chin,” she said. “I have no idea what’s going on, and I can’t get rid of them, and everyone kept laughing and being like, ‘Did you do that on purpose?’”

Ms. Prior, 33, was one of millions of Instagram users this week who stumbled upon instants, a new app feature that shares a photo with a person’s mutual followers or close friends — immediately after it’s taken.

How do instants work?

Since Instagram rolled out the feature on Wednesday, users have commiserated over its unthinkable side effects, from the threat of an accidental toilet selfie to sharing a snap of the moment they wake up.

Soon after learning about her unflattering posts, Ms. Prior searched for ways to disable the feature.

“I was like, ‘There’s just no way this ends well for me,’” Ms. Prior said. “I’ve got my fiancé’s family on there. Could you imagine?”

Instants appear as a small stack of photos in the bottom right corner of a user’s inbox. You can tap through the stack to see posts from people you know before a camera opens, allowing you to share your own photos. Instagram provides a brief tutorial on how to use instants the first time a user clicks on the photo stack.

On the camera page, you can manually choose whether your photo goes to “Friends” or “Close Friends.” The second you tap the shutter button, the photo that you take is shared with the people on those lists.

Only users whom you follow and who follow you back, or those on your close friends list, can see your instants, a Meta spokeswoman said. Those people can react and reply to the images, but in contrast to stories, you won’t be able to tell who the lurkers are if they only viewed it.

Similar to snaps on Snapchat, instants disappear immediately after someone has seen them. Nobody can view an instant after 24 hours, and your followers also can’t screenshot them.

- Author: Hannah Ziegler, The New York Times

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