Why do people feel the need to know when others are active on social media or not? Major creep vibes, but sure if you need to know where your teenager is, I get it. If you wanna keep tabs on your significant other, do what’s best for you, but seriously, Instagram?
Instagram now shows when people are active, or when they were last active. There isn’t a green dot next to a profile picture to notify you when someone's online. Instead, you'll have access to information about another user's activity if you shared a direct message with them.
When you check your direct messages, an activity statement appears below the receiver's username to inform you of when they were last active on the social media site.
You can’t go wild and check everyone's activity at once, just the people you interact with directly. The active message varies from "active now" to "active today", and can even display specific time information like "active 9 minutes ago". Facebook already shows when people are active, so this feature is not new, just unnecessary.
However, Instagram made sure to give you the power to turn this feature off. Once turned off, you will no longer see when others are active and vice versa. Just go into your settings and swipe the “show activity status" button to turn the feature on or off.
Of course, this small detail is not going to stop anyone from using the app. We've survived a few Instagram updates that were just as unnecessary (like the time Instagram took notes from Snapchat and added stories and stickers. And who could forget when Instagram changed the order of posts from chronological to order of importance/recommended?).
Use this feature at your own discretion. Shoot your shot and wait for that "active now" message. Just don't be a creep. Keep hitting that like button. Happy scrolling!
Photos by NBC and Instagram