Instagram Maps: Feature or future?

Meta’s Instagram has begun rolling out a new ‘Maps’ feature, similar to Snapchat’s (but with added privacy concerns). It has also rolled out a new ‘friends’ tab on the Reels page, allowing users to see videos already liked by others they follow, seemingly weighted by the friends they interact with most. 

(Re)focusing on friends

Together, these two features demonstrate a shift back to users’ close friend groups – a move away from the focus on content discovery and entertainment that had begun to oust them.

There is likely an attention competition play here. MIDiA’s consumer survey, detailed in our latest social report, reveals that Snapchat retains a 51% weekly active user penetration among 16-19-year-olds, and 49% among 20-24-year-olds. Maps shows an intent to cater to those closer, IRL-focused moments with friends, giving users another reason to stay on the app, and less of a reason to tap back over to Snapchat. 79% of Snapchat weekly active users also use Instagram weekly, meaning there is already some degree of overlap going on.

Moreover, over time, Instagram has seen users shift focus from the Feed to Reels and Stories, and increasingly into Direct Messaging. In an interview with 20VC in 2023, Instagram head Adam Mosseri acknowledged that more photos and videos are shared in DMs than in Stories or the Feed. While in principle this may look like creator content, the anecdotal reality is users sending memes and Reels to each other directly. The Friends tab could reduce time spent in DMs by removing the need to go there to have that moment of connection, causing users to linger in Reels instead (where they are easier to monetise).

It’s not all about the features 

Apps are differentiated by their culture and networks, rather than features themselves.  Roughly half of all Reels users also use TikTok or Shorts, and vice versa. Users might adopt Instagram Maps, but they are unlikely to abandon Snapchat for the purpose, as they will have different established friend networks on each.

Snapchat has built its audience with an offering of peer-to-peer messaging and updates, where close friend groups keep tabs on each other.  A refocusing on ‘friends first’ could shift Instagram’s culture, rebuilding networks within what has become a largely decentralised content space. However, with 50% weekly active use among all age groups, and peaking at 75% of 16-19-year-olds, there is not a lot of room for Instagram to use this shift to grow its userbase. Among the age group, only YouTube is higher at 79%. 

Future proofing against cultural headwinds

While it may not grow the apps’ userbase or time spent, a refocusing on friends could be future proofing the app. In short: being online just isn’t as appealing as it used to be.

According to MIDiA’s Q1 2025 consumer survey, more than 80% of under-25s have tried to reduce their screen time in the last month, peaking at 88% of 16-19s and 24-35s in English-speaking markets.A study in the UK by the British Standards Institution found that 46% of 16-21-year-olds would rather be young in a world without the internet altogether, and 70% reported that they feel worse about themselves after spending time on social media (per The Guardian). 

Young people are increasingly conscious of the downsides of social platforms and online spaces, and sentiment towards them is increasingly negative. This negative sentiment has not (yet) impacted weekly active use, given the platforms’ undeniable utility and seeming inescapability.

Yet such degradation of sentiment will have an impact eventually, if only meaning users embrace whatever comes next with open arms. Focusing on friends, and thereby super-serving what users came to these social platforms for in the first place, is a good way for Instagram to manage that threat in the near-term. However, a bigger shift is going to be necessary to truly address the increasingly negative sentiment towards the digital world among its youngest users.