Last week, Instagram announced a rather minor and late feature. If you’re a regular about the ‘gram then you might be excited about the status dot. That right, Instagram announced that it was adding a green dot so that users will know when another user is online. Rejoice! No more “Active Now” and “Active 40m ago.”
The green status dot–and other related status dots–are kind of expected now. They came along during the days of instant messaging two decades ago. Of course, some social media services have no use for them. Twitter simply isn’t that kind of place where you need to know if someone is on the app.
Given the very nature of apps in being installed to your mobile device and the nature of users not being that far from their device, that’s pretty much eliminated. Not only that, people can use Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever platform either on their desktop or on their device. The green status dot just seems outdated on anything that isn’t a Messenger.
That said, Instagram’s status dot will pop up in direct messaging and friends lists. So if you’ve never interacted with another user before, you won’t know their status.If you want to deactivate the feature, simply go to “Settings” then “Activity Status” and turn it off.
