Instagram introduces 'secretive' new feature that could change how you share your relationship online
Social media is an intrinsic party of many relationships these days and the notion of launching either 'hard' or 'soft' is something that countless couples have to navigate at some point in the early stages.
It can become tricky to share a part of your life that's growing in importance if you've not yet officially launched your relationship online, however, yet a new Instagram feature could make that process a whole lot easier.
As reported by the New York Post, a new feature available thanks to Meta's AI capabilities gives you the power to blur parts of images in your Stories — helping you hide the identity of your new significant other if you're not ready for public approval yet.
Many people already do this type of teasing by showing select parts of their boyfriend or girlfriend – be it a hand, an item of clothing, or even a part of their face that's not easily identifiable – but this new feature both makes it easier and allows you to be even more mysterious.
How to blur or pixelate someone in your Instagram story
In order to take advantage of this new feature you simply need to use the new 'Pixel' effect available when posting a new Story. This is slightly different to other effects that have been around for a while, as it requires you to insert a prompt to let the AI work its magic.
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This allows you to be far more flexible with how much you want to hide, letting you obscure select parts of the image and to a degree that suits you best — with some potentially wanting to hide more than others.
Instagram's own demonstration sees the other person in the images dramatically hidden with large block-style pixellation – letting others know that you've got a boyfriend but hiding who they actually are – but this is easily tweaked for your own stories.
"Soft launching? We got you," wrote Instagram in the post announcing the feature. "Use the Pixel effect in Stories and edit the prompt to call out what you want pixelated — like 'the person on the right'."
What other new features has Instagram introduced?
This is only one of many new features that have been added to Instagram in recent months, with a barrage of free and paid additions that help you have a better experience using the app.
Among the free additions are the ability to add links to your captions – saving you from directing people to your bio – alongside individual captions for each photo in a carousel, and the option to rearrange photos on your profile grid.
You can also unlock a number of potentially appealing additions by paying for Instagram Plus – the platform's new monthly subscription – as this allows you to see how many times your Story has been rewatched, search through the viewers of a Story, and extend a Story's lifespan to 48 hours from 24.
You can also 'preview' another user's Story without it counting as a view in what has emerged as a controversial addition, as many claim that it helps people 'stalk' their exes online and remain anonymous.