Instagram is testing a new feature that would allow users to see if someone in particular is following them, and it isn’t a minute too soon. Sure, you can currently scroll your list of followers in the hope that you might find out if the cute girl you met at last Saturday’s party was interested enough to follow your account, but if you have as many followers as most people do, it could take forever to find her among your other friends and followers. And this method makes it even harder to figure out if someone has stopped following you, or started following you after you asked them to stop (that creepy ex, for example), because Instagram lets its users follow or unfollow without so much as a notification.
The new feature has been long awaited by Instagram users, and many (including yours truly) have been wondering why such a simple enhancement has taken so long to be rolled out. How does it work? Very simply. Go to the person’s bio, and right there at the bottom, if they’re actually following you on Instagram, there will be a finger pointing to the words ‘Follows you’.
Unfortunately, if you’re an iOS user, the new ‘follows you’ feature is not yet available, so you’ll just have to wait before you go stalking your followers. And it seems that it might not have rolled out to all Android users as of yet, according to Engadget. Still, it’s good to know that Instagram has finally decided to listen to its users and make the feature available at all. The response from Instagram users has been overwhelmingly positive, with a user posting “It’s about time Instagram added the ‘follows you’ notification” and another, “Instagram finally has a ‘follows you’ feature. It’s (sic) only took them forever.”
Mashable reported that a spokesperson for Instagram, at Mashable‘s questions about the new ‘follows you’ feature, said ” “We’re always testing ways to improve the Instagram experience.” It’s kind of a vague, all encompassing answer that I’m not sure how to interpret. I mean, with Instagram users overjoyed and praising the feature on Instagram, I would think that it would have been more forthcoming in explaining why the feature was rolled out and why it took it so long to do so. In any case, be on the lookout for the feature – and if you’re an iOS user, arm yourself with patience. I’m hoping that the release for iOS won’t take as long as it did for Android.