Instagram’s New Green Dots to Show When Your Friends Are Online

Popular image and video sharing app Instagram in a blog post on Thursday announced the launch of a new feature that would be particularly frustrating for users who like to stay discreet on the platform. In the Instagram Directsection of the app, users will now see a green dot next to profile pictures of their friends indicating that said friend is online. The green dot indicator is not just limited to Direct, and will also reflect while you are sharing posts via direct message (DM). This is similar to the green dot that is displayed on Messenger, yet another Facebook-owned social media platform.

Apart from a green dot to show when users are online, Instagram will also show recent activity status including timestamps such as ‘Active 25m ago’ and ‘Active yesterday’. Fortunately, Instagram gives users the option to hide the new online status that will available for users on Android and iOS. To do that, go into Settings on the app and turn off the Show Activity Status option.

“DMing friends and connecting over the content you love is more fun when you know your friends are there to see it. This update gives you the ability to have more of those real-time conversations while giving you the control to hide your status altogether,” said Instagram in its blog post.

Last week, with its version 55.0.0.0.33 alpha Android update, Instagram had introduced support for adaptive icons that will allow the app to adjust icon size according to the device it supports. Apart from that, it was also reported that the Facebook-owned company is also looking to make it easier for general users to apply for a blue tick on their profiles. This is expected to ease the verification process.