How Accurate Is Instagram Active Now (2023 Updated Info)

Are you a frequent Instagram user? These days, even the least tech-savvy people use the platform to share reels and funny memes with their friends and family. When it comes to image sharing, there’s no platform quite like it on the Internet. However, every social media client comes with some pet peeves. The fact that we can share any visual content with our friends instantly makes any waiting annoying — even if it’s a ten-minute delay. We want to see our buddies’ reactions as soon as possible, not after hours and hours.

When our friends are too busy to see our messages, that’s only understandable — or if they’ve exited Instagram moments ago without seeing your message. But how can you tell if your contacts are online or not, and if they’re currently using Instagram? That’s where the Active Now status comes in. Similar to the activity status on Facebook Messenger, Instagram’s active status lets you see when someone is currently online on Instagram. The function serves a simple purpose — it shows you if you can reasonably expect an immediate response to DMs and comments.

How Does Active Now Work?

The Activity status feature on Instagram manifests itself in a couple of different ways — or rather, it shows you different information based on where you are in the Instagram app. For instance, when you come across someone’s profile, they’ll have a green dot below their profile picture if they’re currently in the app as well. However, if you go to your Instagram direct messages, you’ll find more detailed information about people with whom you’ve had conversations, such as:

Typing — if they’re currently typing a message to you
Seen — if they’ve opened the last message you’ve sent to them
Active yesterday — if the person opened Instagram the day before
Active 10 minutes ago — if that’s when the person happened to have used Instagram
However, once you enter the chat with that person, you’ll see another layer of the Active Now feature — statuses like “In The Camera” if they’re currently taking a picture in the chat, or “In The Chat” if they’re also present in the conversation.

Bear in mind that all of this is only true if the other person has enabled the Activity Status on their Instagram account. If they’ve disabled it, you won’t be able to see if they’re online, when they last used Instagram, or what they’re currently doing.

Is Active Now accurate on Instagram?

According to most users, Active Now is a fairly accurate feature. It rarely glitches out and displays information that’s flat-out wrong. However, it’s only accurate up to a point.

Whenever an Instagram user is active and their activity status is turned on, their app will send information about their activity to Instagram’s servers. These servers then relay the information to other users, which is how you see the green dot and other signs of activity.

Naturally, this is an extremely simplified overview of the underlying technology — but even with just that, you can understand that delays are possible as all of this information is relayed between servers and users. As a result, sometimes the activity info you see about users isn’t updated in real time.

In most cases, this doesn’t result in delays larger than 30 minutes or so. For example, if your friend hasn’t used Instagram for 3 hours and 50 minutes, their activity status might be Last Active 8 Hours Ago or Active Today.

That’s because Instagram’s activity status always rounds up the figure to reduce traffic to their servers and stop the platform from lagging. So, Active Now isn’t completely accurate, but it’s accurate enough to satisfy the majority of users.

The only exception to the rounding up is when we’re talking about time intervals smaller than one hour. For instance, if someone you follow has last used the app just 15 minutes ago, their status will be “Active 15 Minutes Ago”. However, if the time interval is smaller than 5 minutes, you’ll simply see “Active Now”.

What Does Show When You’re Active Together Do?

Besides the Active Now setting, there’s another activity-related setting you might be interested in: “Show When You’re Active Together.”

When you and your friends have this feature turned on, you’ll be able to see who’s currently active in your group DM on Instagram. However, bear in mind that this is only possible if your general Activity Status has been toggled on as well.

To turn this feature on, follow these steps:

Tap your profile picture in the bottom right of the Instagram app.
Tap the three horizontal stripes.
Open Settings and Privacy by tapping the gearwheel icon.
Go to Messages and Story replies, found underneath How others can interact with you.
Open Show Activity Status.
Toggle the Show When You’re Active Together option on or off.
The best thing about this setting is that it’s separate from your general activity settings. As a result, you can choose to keep your Activity Status on while disabling this chat-specific feature. That way, people will know when you’re active on Instagram, but they won’t necessarily know if you’re currently reading your group chat with them.

How To Turn Off Active Now On Instagram

Active Now has a flip side — while it’s great to know when the people you’re interacting with are online, it also means they can see when you’re online too. If you’re comfortable with this, it’s no problem, but many people would prefer to keep their online activities to themselves — especially on social media.

Fortunately, disabling Active Now is easy, just follow these steps:

Go to your profile by tapping the profile icon.
Choose the three horizontal stripes.
Choose Settings and Privacy in the menu that appears.
Tap on Messages and Story Replies.
Tap on Show Activity Status.
Toggle off the Show Activity Status option.
Frequently Asked Questions

Can Instagram’s Last Active Be Wrong?

Yes, but only up to half an hour. Instagram’s activity status rarely misses the mark more than 30 minutes.

Why Does Instagram Say Active Now When I’m Not?

While it could be a glitch, Instagram may also be showing that you’re online because it’s using data to download content in the background while you’re using another app. This may happen if you refresh your feed and then immediately exit the app.

How Do You Know if Someone Is Actually Active on Instagram?

If their Activity Status is on, you’ll be able to see a green dot next to their profile picture.