Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and plenty of other social media platforms have all experienced a backlash from users at some point about how they handle autoplaying videos. Some users are not happy that videos play automatically because it eats into data, but the most vocal complaints come…
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and plenty of other social media platforms have all experienced a backlash from users at some point about how they handle autoplaying videos. Some users are not happy that videos play automatically because it eats into data, but the most vocal complaints come from those who hate videos that not only autoplay, but autoplay with sound.
Instagram is rolling out an update that acts as a brilliant compromise between silent autoplay and noisy autoplay. Simple yet clever, it’s hard to imagine that the idea won’t be copied by all and sundry.
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The update means that video autoplay — this is nothing new. What is new is the way the audio side of things is handled. If you tap a video to enable sound, all the autoplaying videos you encounter from that point forward will play with sound enabled. When you change your mind and want to enjoy the silence, just tap a noisy video to silence it and all future videos will autoplay in silence.
It’s a simple toggle, effectively, and it makes it easy to take control of your video playback settings for individual Instagram sessions. By default videos will autoplay silently, so you — and those around you — shouldn’t get any nasty surprises when you’re Instagramming in a quiet environment. Instagram has confirmed the rollout of the update to TechCrunch.
Expect to see a similar feature implemented elsewhere very soon!
Image credit: Ink Drop / Shutterstock
