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Joy-Anna Duggar is an independent woman. The Counting On star is separating from her husband — on social media, that is. Now that Austin Forsyth has his own Instagram account, the reality TV personality is gradually taking over what had been the couple’s joint account. 

Austin Forsyth gets his own Instagram 

Austin, 26, and Joy-Anna, 22, have shared a public social media presence since getting married in 2017. But in March, Austin struck out on his own. He created a solo Instagram account with the handle @austin4site. At that point, Joy-Anna seemed to take over what had been their shared account: @austinandjoyforsyth. 

So far, Austin has only a handful of posts on his Instagram, mostly images of himself, his wife, and their 2-year-old son Gideon. Sometimes, he shares the same photos and videos as Joy-Anna. 

Joy-Anna Duggar says she’s ‘working on’ changing her Instagram handle

Now that Austin has his own social media presence, Joy-Anna appears to have taken over the other account. Like her husband, she mostly posts about her growing family. (Joy-Anna’s second child is due in August 2020.)

But even though Joy-Anna is running the account, it still has the old handle. And fans think it’s time for a change. 

“With Austin having his own Insta now you should change your name just to you!” one commented on a recent post. 

Joy-Anna agreed. “Yes! Working on getting it changed,” she replied. 

Joy-Anna has already changed her Instagram display name to Joy Forsyth. But it’s not clear if she’s also planning on changing her Instagram username or handle. The change seems to be taking some time. When a person made a similar comment about changing her handle back in April, she also said that she was working on it. 

Her sisters have their own Instagram accounts 

Joy-Anna and Austin weren’t the only Duggars with a shared Instagram account. Her parents share the @duggarfam account. And her brothers Joseph and Josiah also share accounts with their spouses, Kendra and Lauren. 

But most of Joy-Anna’s sisters have their own presence on social media. Jill, Jessa, Jinger, and Jana all have their own profiles on Instagram, as does Josh Duggar’s wife Anna. Joy-Anna’s married sisters all have 1 million+ followers on their solo accounts, while Joy-Anna’s shared account has a little less than 1 million. Perhaps carving out her own identity on the social media platform apart from her husband will allow her to increase the number of her followers.

Why do some Duggars share Instagram accounts? 

It’s not clear why some Duggars share Instagram accounts with their spouses. But it might have something to do with the family’s habit of keeping tabs on each other’s online activity. Dad Jim Bob Duggar has admitted to using tools to monitor what his kids’ are doing on the internet. And Jinger’s husband Jeremy Vuolo has said that he accesses his social media on his wife’s phone, apparently to avoid any temptation, as he explained during a chat with Jeremy and Audrey Roloff on their Behind the Scenes podcast. 

“I want to have purity in my thoughts and eyes and I personally don’t want to have the temptation in my palm 24/7,” he said.

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