You can now report Instagram problems by shaking your phone

Instagram, owned by Meta, is probably one of the worst social networks currently in existence, as it (along with Meta’s other social network, Facebook ) has faced scandal after scandal in recent months. While the company doesn’t do much to address the myriad mental health campaigns and misinformation that plague the platform, there is a new feature that is quite interesting and will distract you from these previous ones.

Instagram boss Adam Moseri shared a video highlighting two new features. First, the iOS app (and soon the Android version) now has the ability to remove individual photos from the carousel gallery. Second, and definitely more fun, is the new "Rage Shake" feature that comes on both iOS and Android. When you shake the phone, Instagram opens a dialog with a button to report problems with the app. You can also exclude Rage Shake from the same dialog, in case you accidentally activate it too often. https://twitter.com/mosseri/status/1461034689632686082

It's always fun when mobile apps or operating systems add functionality to shake the device, though the practice isn't too common - probably because it's not detected until someone actually shakes their phone. iPhones can undo the latest text action by shaking the phone, but since not everyone likes that gesture, Apple introduced a new method of activation with the release of iOS 13 in 2019.

In other news on Instagram, Meta announced today that the standalone Instagram messaging app, Threads, is shutting down. The separation of Facebook and Facebook Messenger apps seemingly inspired it, but Threads has mainly focused on camera content. Users have neverwidely accepted Threads - the Android app has been around since 2019 and has less than 10 million installs, compared to over 1 billion installs for the main Instagram app.