Instagram now broadcasts your activity status to friends

By

These Instagram tips will help you connect with photographers who share your interests.
Your Instagram activity is now on display.
Photo: Lee Peterson/Cult of Mac

Instagram is taking a page out of Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp’s playbook this week by adding a new feature that lets your friends stalk you even more.

Starting today, Instagram users should see some new information in the apps direct messages tab that shows when certain people were last active on Instagram.

The new feature is enabled by default on all accounts. Thankfully, it can be turned off though if you don’t want to broadcast your activity to everyone. Only people you follow or who you have DM’d recently will be able to see your activity status, but it still could be a little more info than some people want to share:

Here’s what the message section looks like now:

Instagram
Instagram’s Direct Messages section shows other friends’ activity levels.
Photo: Buster Hein/Cult of Mac

To disable the activity sharing feature, go to the settings section in the Instagram app, then scroll down to “Show Activity Status” and toggle it off. If you do choose not to share your activity status, you won’t be able to see others’ activity status.

Newsletters

Daily round-ups or a weekly refresher, straight from Cult of Mac to your inbox.

  • The Weekender

    The week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.