Given the rise of Instagram Stories, it's no surprise to see that Instagram is now looking to add new notification tools and options to help boost user engagement, and to ensure that people are aware of relevant mentions.

The latest tool on this front comes in the form of a new 'Stories About You' listing, which is reportedly being tested in the app.

Spotted by reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong, the new section would list all the Stories in which a user has been @mentioned or tagged by the Story creator, separating these notifications from your general notifications stream.

The option could be particularly beneficial for high-profile users who see a lot of mentions, helping them to better understand their notifications list, and respond to relevant alerts. It might also be beneficial for brands, alerting them to mentions in Stories, and helping to categorize their streams in order to guage related activity.

As noted, given that Instagram Stories is now up to 500 million daily active users, and Stories is becoming the primary sharing option for a growing number of people, it makes sense for Instagram to add in a separate notification system dedicated to Stories mentions. While, functionally, this doesn't add anything new - users have always been alerted to @mentions in their notifications list - it would help to divide the different types of alerts into separate streams. 

It could also be the precursor to an additional Stories functionality - at this stage, the option is in test mode, so we don't have a lot of details on how it might work, specifically. 

Most of Wong's back-end discoveries go on to become feature announcements within the proceeding months, so you can expect to see more about this feature in the near future.