Instagram now shows you which accounts you interact with the most and least

Are you due an Instagram followers purge? The social network now lets you see which accounts you've interacted the most or least with. When you head to your "Following" list, you should see the options "Least interacted with" and "Most shown in feed." The feature makes it easier to decide if you want to cut accounts out or get updates from those you want to get more information from. 

On top of that, you can also sort your Following list from earliest to latest followed or vice versa. If you are thinking of cutting down on your Instagram following list, now is the best time to do that.

You can now reply to Instagram Stories with GIFs

It might not be an essential update, but Instagram now lets users reply to Stories using GIFs. You can already add GIFs from Giphy into Stories themselves. Now, you can use these GIFs to reply to Instagram Stories, too. Maybe sometimes, when words aren't enough, there are GIFs to help you better express yourself.

Instagram takes out ‘Following’ activity tab for all users

Some of you may have already noticed that Instagram has introduced a new change to its app. The company has started rolling out an update that gets rid of the "Following" tab. It's previously accessible through the Activity section within the app. So, now when you select on the heart icon at the bottom of the screen, it'll only show your activity. Instagram started taking this feature out for some users since August, but now it'll begin rolling out to all users. 

According to Vishal Shah, Instagram's head of product, the decision to remove the Following tab was so the app has a simpler look. Shah said, "People didn't always know that their activity is surfacing. So you have a case where it's not serving the use case you built it for, but it's also causing people to be surprised when their activity is showing up." 

 Source: Buzzfeed News

Instagram tests out QR codes for its 'Nametag' feature

You may or may not know that Instagram has what's called a Nametag feature. And it looks like the company wants to add QR codes to it. App researcher Jane Manchun Wong discovered the change. Right now, Nametag is used within the Instagram app to allow other users to scan it so they can follow you. It shows your username and the Instagram logo within the white square. The background is customizable. While Wong was going through the app, she found the QR code option, which looks a bit more unique than usual QR codes we see with simplified Instagram logos thrown into the mix. But it seems this feature works with standard QR scanners. That means you can take your Nametag outside of Instagram and share it with whomever you want. As for whether this feature rolls out to all users, well, that's something we can't say right now.