It has nearly been a week since Instagram Stories' big debut and it seems like people are finally getting used to the social media platform's newest feature. Despite it bearing similarities to another app, Snapchat, a lot of people are still uncertain about specific details — like whether you can you screenshot Instagram Stories or not. After all, there is still a lot of ground to cover and plenty of special features that likely haven't been figured out yet.
Despite Instagram Stories receiving a mixed reaction from users when it debuted, the app's new feature is definitely here to stay. Whether Instagram users choose to ignore its existence or fully embrace having two different stories on two different apps is up to them — but learning how to navigate Instagram Stories isn't painful and it's actually quite easy to use.
In fact, some of Instagram Stories features are dare I say, better than Snapchat's — like screenshotting. And screenshotting an Instagram Story is very easy. All iPhone and Android users have to do is go to the Snapchat story they want to take a picture of and press and hold the power and home button — like they would for any taking other screen on their phone. It really is that simple.
With Snapchat, taking a screen shot can be embarrassing and kind of a pain — if you screenshot someone's snap story, they can tell on their stories page. And even worse, if you screenshot a snap sent directly to you on Snapchat, it will notify the sender that you took a screenshot — not a good look for users who want to be discreet about being able to blackmail their sister later with an awkwardly hilarious photo of her face and a bee-filter.
Luckily, Instagram Stories does not send notifications to the users whose stories you screenshot, which can be handy for wanting to save photos without explanation. But this is also not so great, as you can't tell who is screenshotting your story either... so there's that.
You can, however, choose people from whom to hide your story — in case you want to avoid any unnecessary drama later.
Instagram Stories is here to stay and has proven to have has its perks — allowing for easy, notification-less screenshots is definitely one of them. Users can now feel free to screenshot as many stories as they want without feeling creepy. Or at least, not as creepy as they did before.
