Accessing Facebook-owned Instagram content without being notified is particularly useful when you want to catch up with loved ones or followers without being broadcast to everyone that you have viewed their story.
Here are a few methods to achieve this on both the handheld and desktop versions of Facebook's photo-sharing app.

Method 1: Viewing stories in a browser window
One of the best methods is to view Instagram stories in a browser window instead of the mobile app. To do this, go to Facebook's photo-sharing platform on your computer and press Command + Opt + I in your browser window.
This will open your browser's developer tools. Press F12 on your keyboard to open this up, or in the top right corner select inspect.

You should see a side panel have opened. In this panel, find 'Elements'. Open the 'Elements' tab and locate 'body > main > div > div > div' below that you will find an item called 'RCE > postNode'. Look below this for the Facebook post you want to view. If you find the story you wish to be invisible, keep scrolling below where this element ends.

You can then right-click to 'Edit as HTML' and select a frame in the frame selection menu, holding your scroll then finding the element we hid above and reposition yourself there.

Paste the link of the webpage into the frame you selected, which is set to open in the said frame you just selected. Press enter on the keyboard.

You should now view an Instagram without any notifications.

Method 2: Using the 'Ig stories view' URL bypass
To view an Facebook post story without getting notified, use the 'Ig stories view' URL method. This method is less reliable than the first because Facebook-owned Instagram could potentially block this request or do something to deter this trick from being executed.

Copy the link of the story you want to view. Ensure the URL you have is the share URL, which refers to mobile in the prefix. Or the URL needs to end with 'm'.

Paste it into your browser's address field. Now, at the end of the link, substitute the prefix 'm' at the end with 'i', which refers to Ig stories view. Replace all of the letters 'M' with the letters 'i' until they replace it at the link right after the first 'i'.

Then press enter in the browser. The story view should change, enabling you to view the anonymous story viewer without a notification. The 'igstoriesview' method and other similar trick has been applied in many mobile apps in the past to prevent receiving the broadcast which sends you a message that says a friend has seen your post or as referred to here the posting of the Instagram story status update. However, this trick does have the potential of being outdated and as the name implies or being misused.

More methods are being created as new information comes in to be added for this, such as viewing these stories on your handheld at the bottom of your post selecting a story you don't wish to view while holding down, not pressing a tap that automatically scrolls up.