The Sound on Some Users' Instagram Stories Won't Turn off, and People Are Livid

A wave of new features has been rolled on Instagram in recent months, and some of those features have done more to frustrate users than to make the experience on the app better. More recently, some users have noticed that they are unable to turn the sound on their Instagram Stories off, and some users have become so frustrated by the problem that they are threatening to delete the app altogether.

Normally, when you're using Instagram on a mobile device, you can turn the sound on the app off either by clicking a sound icon in the app itself or by turning the sound down on your device. To turn the sound off on an iPhone, you flip the switch on the side of the phone. Once that switch is flipped, Instagram should tell you that you're in "Silent mode," which means you can watch the stories at work or elsewhere without disturbing those around you.

More recently, though, many users have noticed that Instagram is overriding this feature and essentially refusing to go into silent mode. As a result, the sound on Stories stays on, and users have begun to play them in situations where doing so may be awkward.

"This new Instagram update really overrides silent mode to play the sound on people’s stories and this will actually be the thing that makes me lose my mind," one user wrote.

For now, it's unclear whether this is a bug or something that Instagram pushed out intentionally, but one thing is for certain: Users are not happy about the shift.

"Why are Instagram stories automatically playing sound? Please no. I want to watch videos in silent," another person added.

"Can someone explain why it seems like you can’t turn the sound off on Instagram stories now? What am I doing wrong?" a third wrote.

Normally, turning sound off on Stories is pretty simple, but for those who are experiencing this issue, it may be almost impossible. You can try uninstalling and reinstalling the app, or logging out and back in, but in all likelihood, this glitch is something that will need to be fixed by Instagram's team of engineers. It's highly unlikely that Meta would ever roll out this kind of feature intentionally, so what seems more likely is that it's a bug.

Instagram has not acknowledged this issue, but given how widespread it seems to be, it's likely that they have a team of engineers working to fix it as soon as possible. These kinds of fixes are usually implemented within a few hours, so it seems possible that the solution to the sound issue will be resolved quickly.

If not, users may only find their frustration increasing. After all, Instagram is expected to work properly, and when users find that it doesn't, they may be inclined to complain or even quit the app altogether.