Few things in life are as stress-inducing as being confronted by friends for leaving them on “read.” The ability to know who has seen your DMs on Instagram is undoubtedly one of the most frustrating features on the photo-sharing platform, but now according to a recent announcement from the app’s parent company META, serial ghosters could soon have the ability to turn off the functionality for good.
META CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, took to their respective Instagram broadcast channels to share some exciting news: users could soon be able to read messages without notifying their interlocutors.
“We’ve heard your feedback and have begun testing a new feature that allows you to turn off read receipts in your Direct Messages. Soon, people will be able to choose whether or not others can see when they’ve read their messages,” Mosseri explained in the announcement.
They also provided a step-by-step procedure for those who wish to remain incognito while opening and reading messages. Based on the screenshots shared by the two tech moguls, all it takes to disable “read” receipts is to navigate to your account settings, tap on “Privacy and Safety,” and then find the “Who Can See Your Activity” category, where you can toggle this option on or off. Unfortunately, since the feature is currently in a trial phase, and only available to a limited number of accounts, not everyone will be able to enjoy this new update just yet.
As for when the feature will be available globally, that remains uncertain. However, users who have eagerly been waiting for the opportunity to leave people on read guilt-free hope to see its global rollout happen sooner rather than later— and honestly we can’t blame them.
