Instagram Brings Poll Sticker To Private Messages: An Option For Privacy

Polls are good for soliciting feedback. But do users really need to make them public?

Instagram introduced the Poll Sticker to Stories back in October 2017. The social media platform has expanded that idea by offering a Question Sticker, which is also limited to Stories. As for polls, there are chances that users may want to keep them out from all of their followers.

Instagram realizes that not all questions are made for the public eye. This is the reason why Instagram is giving an option to make polls on DMs, providing users another way to interact within smaller groups.

This way, users can easily create polls without having broadcasting it as a Story.

Adding polls to DMs is a straightforward process, and works exactly like public Instagram Stories polls.

Users need to take a picture, to then add a Poll sticker, ask a question and customize the answer. But for polls on DMs, users are presented with the option to send the poll only to a selection of friends. Once sent, everyone in the group can give their opinion and see live results (as they would on a public Poll).

The feature is just a minor addition, and nothing groundbreaking, like for example, the ability to mute friends' posts.

But still, the tool can be useful for users who just want to poll a small group of relevant people.

The move is in line with the trends that shifted public sharing, away from the public. As various reports have shown, an increasing amount of social media conversation is switching from public consumption to more private forums.

This is because a growing number of users are becoming more aware and wary of distributing everything things for all to see.

People just love to tell their personal lives. This is one of the main reason Stories took off quickly. But due to the growing number of scandals that started from social posts, people started to worry about their posts (especially personal ones) when they are shown to public.

Since such incidents have become a regular occurrence, combining that with privacy concerns and how social media platforms have reportedly been used by political groups to influence voter opinions, an increasing number of users are seeking for conversations on smaller and enclosed groups.

This way, the sender of the post have more control over both the inputs and outputs. Personal things would remain personal.