I have noticed a lot of people dislike the placement of the stories segment... I can understand that they should be seen but the placement they are in right now is really annoying... so I would recommend that they may be put into their own tab on the top right (like the direct message notifications as well as the other notifications are) and also I've met a lot of people (myself included) that wish there was a "Mark all as read" button for all the different notification types...

or to put it in more simple terms... make it so that we can opt out of viewing the stories (I'd make that into a opt-in instead of an opt-out cause opt-in are almost always better for user experience)

and yes we realise that you want them seen but quite a few twitch users REALLY don't like them where they are right now...