Instagram following Snapchat's lead with Stories section

Instagram is not standing still after recent surges in popularity, as it has announced the addition of Instagram Stories, which allows users to mark their daily events with photographs before the images vanish after 24 hours.

The move from the company owned by Facebook is a clear nod towards image sharing rival Snapchat, which is a more frequently utilised smartphone app in which many people upload various photos per day.

Snapchat has been gaining rapidly in the social network market, increasingly being seen as the trendy app amongst teenagers and young adults.

Snapchat has been gaining rapidly in the social network market

“We need to have a place where you feel free to post whatever you want without the nagging fear of, did someone like that or not?” said Kevin Systrom, chief executive and co-founder of Instagram, in an interview.

Instagram Stories will appear in the top row of its account holders' feeds, displaying a host of images that the Instagrammer has posted on that specific day.

There is no way to "like" or "comment" on the photos posted on the new feature, showing a step away for the network from what some perceive as a highly pressurised space where having "likes" on your photo is hugely important.

“Not having feedback is important for Instagram because it is a contrast to the highly pressurized space of a feed where it’s all about did this get enough likes, is this good enough?” Mr. Systrom said.

An internal survey showed some teenagers delete about half the photos in their Instagram feeds. Mr. Systrom declined to confirm the figure, but said “deletions are fairly high” among Instagram users when photos don’t receive enough positive feedback.