Instagram testing a feature which will soon let users rewind, skip through videos

Thanks to the receding attention span of human beings, if any visual content exceeds the standard one or two minutes of duration, we simply end up scrolling further.

To aid in that loss of attention span, Instagram is reportedly testing a new tool that will allow you to skip the boring parts of a video and move to the interesting parts quickly.

If a user is one of the lucky few picked to test out the feature, all they have to do is press down on an Instagram video and slide their finger to the left or the right. A seek bar will appear embedded at the top of the video, complete with a pop-up timecode.

Developer and Instagram tipster Jane Manchun Wong shared a clip of video seeks bar in action. The tool only allows you to scrub without any frame preview. So basically, you wouldn’t know which frame exactly you have to scrub through.

Instagram is testing video seekbar pic.twitter.com/gyIZZhrh2y

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) March 27, 2019

Instagram has been testing basic multimedia features like fast forward and rewind for videos for a while now. But so far, none of them have lasted beyond a few days of testing. The current scrubber does sound convenient, but without a preview, it does become difficult to skip to a particular part of a video.

Nonetheless, the tool will be helpful for those who want to go back to a specific part of a video or skip something to watch the end. Currently, one has to watch the video again in Stories or move to IGTV (which is less popular) and watch the video again.

With inputs from ANI