Meta's Instagram is now transforming the Reels experience by allowing users to pause a video using a single tap anywhere on the screen, and while this was already something that users already know, it was not a universal experience for all.
Tapping on the screen may sometimes lead to muting the Reels clip instead, and many users grew frustrated with this experience as they never know which function they're activating by tapping the screen.
Instagram Now Pauses Reels When Tapping the Screen
Meta's Instagram announced on its text-focused social networking platform, Threads, that the platform's Reels will now pause when the screen is tapped once.
This may seem like a small tweak to the Reels feature or something that people have already experienced before, but users have long been confused about what the single-tap feature really does.
Comments from Instagram users say that they thought that single taps already lead to pausing videos, and this only shows that many were confused about what tapping the screen really does.
According to 9to5Google, the single-tap function on Instagram's Reels has long been a differing experience for users as some say that it pauses the video, and others see the Reels being muted instead.
Apparently, it was an A/B test on Meta's end that had users either pausing or muting the video.
Muting Reels Is Now Different From Pausing Them
With the single-tap function now leading to exclusively pausing the video, the mute function also gets some love from Instagram as it gets a dedicated control feature under the Reels experience.
Users may see the mute button above the play/pause button on the Reels interface, and this allows users to immediately cut off the sounds of a clip instead of having to lower a device's volume.
The tap-to-pause feature on Instagram is arguably more useful than tap-to-mute, as pausing the Reel essentially cuts off both audio and video, while muting it only cuts off the sound.
Originally published on Tech Times
