Instagram is adding some new elements to its inbox Notes feature, including video notes and new engagement options, all aimed at driving more spontaneous interaction within the app.

Video Notes. Now, whenever you create a Note in your IG Direct display, you'll be able to append a looping, 2-second video that's then viewable to your mutual followers or your Close Friends in their Notes tray for 24 hours.
Video notes will add some extra animation for your head-of-inbox prompts, which could incentivize people to pay attention and engage more with your updates.

Also today, Instagram is launching ways to respond to Notes through audio, photo, video, GIFs, and stickers. In the updated process of responding, note viewers will now have an array of options to reply to a Note with, which adds another way to make the process more colorful.

Notes has been a winner for the app, especially among younger audiences - that key demographic that IG really wants to keep engaged.

It is, after all, apparently losing out to other apps. Last November, a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center found that Instagram is now well behind YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat as the main platform of choice in teens' online lives, and younger teens (13-14) are the least likely among this cohort to regularly use the app.
As such, it will double-down where it can, and with teen users creating Notes at 10 times the rate of non-teens, clearly, it smells potential, hence the rising emphasis on Notes as a key connection option.

In other words, even if you don't care for it and never use it, it's probably not about you, with Notes really aimed at driving more engagement among the youth i.e. you're probably just too old to get it.