How To Turn Off The Instagram Feature That Reveals When You Were Last Active

If you’re the kind of person who deliberately leaves people on read because you CBA to engage in an actual human conversation for longer than ten seconds, you’re going to want to hear about Instagram’s latest DM feature.

Following suit of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, our #1 method of interaction with friends has been thrown into chaos after the app has launched a feature that informs people when you were last online. 

Let's get checking out an update from MTV News...

Basically, a status activity notification has now been attached onto your Direct Messages which shows exactly when the people you message or follow were last scrolling through their Instagram feeds.

The update has been rolled out pretty quietly, with users spotting updates like "seen", "typing", "active yesterday", and "active 12m ago" written in light grey text beneath their pal’s names in the DM section of the app.  

In an interview with Refinery29, an Instagram spokesperson said: "We’re constantly working on ways to make Direct the best place to have fun, real-time conversations with friends. We’ve heard from our community that the ability to see when friends were last active helps them feel more connected as they go back and forth in Direct."

If the thought of colleagues and distant relatives being able to track your every move on the app sends chills up your spine, there’s thankfully an easy way to disengage from the feature altogether. 

Go to Profile and tap the Options icon located next to the Edit Profile tab. Scroll down to Settings and toggle off on ‘Show Activity Status.’ 

This will block anyone from checking in your status updates, but will also mean that you don’t have the ability to check in on anyone’s else’s status either.

Hey, you can't have it both ways.