Instagram is testing a new feature that shows your activity status on the app. However, thankfully, this feature is available only in the ‘Direct Message’ section, and it shows how many minutes or hours ago you were active on Instagram.
Instagram hasn’t rolled out this feature officially, but it’s already available for many users worldwide.
The activity status can be seen in the Direct Message (DM) list, just below the person’s username the activity status will be visible, very similar to Facebook Messenger’s. For example, the different kind of statuses will show as ‘Active 42m ago’, ‘Active 2h ago’, or ‘Active today’.
The Verge clarifies that even from the people you’ve DM’d with, the activity status will be visible for only those that you follow.
How to turn it off
Luckily, unlike Facebook Messenger, this feature can be disabled.
Instagram, however, gives you the option to toggle on/off this feature.
Open Settings and scroll down below, and you should see a feature called ‘Show Activity Status’. You can simply toggle it on or off according to your choice.
If you turn this feature off, then your followers will not be able to see your activity status and vice versa.
While this feature can be turned off for now, it also adds to making the app less discreet.
Prior to this, another way of seeing the activity status of the people you follow was available on the notification section under the heart icon. If you tap on following, you will see the recent posts liked by the people and how much time before.