Instagram (commonly abbreviated as IG or Insta) is a photo and video-sharing social networking site created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in the United States. Facebook purchased the service in April 2012 for approximately US$1 billion in cash and stock. The app enables users to upload photos and videos that can be edited with filters and organized using hashtags and geotagging. Public posts may be shared with all followers or with pre-approved followers. Users can search the content of other users using tags and places, as well as view trending content. Users can link their content to a personal feed by liking images and following other users. In this post, you’ll discover how Instagram now shows when users were last active.

Instagram initially differentiated itself by requiring content to be presented in a square (1:1) aspect ratio with a width of 640 pixels to accommodate the width of the iPhone’s monitor at the time. These limits were relaxed in 2015 with a resolution increase to 1080 pixels. Additionally, the service introduced messaging capabilities, the ability to include multiple images or videos in a single message and a Stories feature akin to Snapchat’s main competitor, which enables users to upload photos and videos to a chronological feed, with each post available to others for 24 hours. As of January 2019, the Stories feature was being used on a regular basis by 500 million people.

Instagram began as an iOS application in October 2010 and quickly grew in popularity, with one million registered users in two months, ten million in a year, and one billion as of June 2018. In April 2012, an Android version was launched, followed by a feature-limited desktop interface in November 2012, a Fire OS app in June 2014, and a Windows 10 app in October 2016. As of October 2015, there had been over 40 billion photo uploads. Although Instagram has been lauded for its impact, it has come under fire for a variety of reasons, most notably for policy and interface changes, accusations of censorship, and user-uploaded illegal or inappropriate content.

With over 275 million followers as of January 2021, the most followed individual is Portuguese professional footballer Cristiano Ronaldo. As of January 14, 2019, the most liked photo on Instagram is a photograph of an egg posted by the account @world record egg, which was created for the express intention of breaking Kylie Jenner’s previous record of 18 million likes. The image has reportedly accumulated over 55 million likes. Instagram became the 2010s’ fourth most downloaded smartphone application.

How Instagram now shows when users were last active

Instagram is expanding its messaging segment with the addition of a new feature found in common apps such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. People you follow or have previously communicated with through direct messages will now see when you last used Instagram.

Instagram’s new “Show Activity Status” setting is activated by default. You can disable it if you believe that no one wants to be that certain of what you’re doing. However, if you disable activity status for yourself, no one else will be able to see that information. It’s possible that Instagram is testing this feature with a limited number of users, but several people I asked to verify confirmed that it is available on both Android and iOS.

To be crystal clear, your followers cannot see your most recent Instagram activity. Only those you follow or have previously DM’d can see how long ago you were scrolling through your feed. While some of my friends simply show as “active today,” on the other hand, it does get detailed enough to view “active now” when you’re actively using the app at the time. Again, if you’re not comfortable with others knowing this sort of information, you can disable the function in settings.