How To See If Someone Is Active On Instagram?
Instagram was one of the first social media platforms that focuses more on users creating photo and video content. Since its launch in 2010, the social media platform has seen a total of 1.386 billion users on the platform, making it rank the 4th most used social media platform worldwide. With this number of users, some of the social media platform’s users may want to know if there are ways to see if other users on the platform are active, leading us to ask if it’s possible to see when someone is active on Instagram.
You can see when someone is active on Instagram via the platform’s built-in timestamp feature. You can view a user’s “last active” status via your Instagram dm, but you can only do this if the user does have the last active status enabled in their account settings or if you’ve interacted with them.
Instagram is one of the few social media networks that notifies users when you were last seen on the app. So if you want to know how to view this, in this article, I’ll share with you if it’s possible to view the activity of someone on the app and the steps you can follow to view the activity of the users on the platform.
Can You See If Someone Is Active On Instagram?
If you use Instagram very often and you wonder if it’s possible for you to view a user’s activity on the platform, probably because you’ll like to know if they are online, or the last time they were online, be rest assured because Instagram provides you with an easy way to view the activity of a user. With the new improvements made on Instagram’s mobile application and desktop versions, you can easily view a user’s activity or their last activity on the platform. You can do this via the platform’s dm, or via the timestamp on the posts made by the contact.
Instagram is a photo and video content-based social media platform. The platform allows users to create, share, and also view photos and video content from other Instagram users while also allowing users to interact with other users’ content via likes, shares, comments, and follows. Users can also send direct messages (DMs) to contacts that they follow so as to interact with them personally via a chat room.
Since its launch in 2010, the platform has seen a drastic growth which led the business giant, Facebook, to purchase the platform in 2012 for a whopping sum of $1 billion, which is a shocking sum for a company with only 13 employees. The platform proved its worth by becoming the 4th most used social media platform with over 1.386 billion users in 2021. With this amount of users, there’s the need for regular development in the features of the platform which led to the development of the “last active” status feature that lets users know the last time a user was seen active on the platform.
People that use Instagram as a means of social interaction with their family or friends may want to know the activity of other users to be able to interact with them in real-time via a direct message or a message, like, or comment on their post. Some users buy threads likes as a way to bookmark or save the thread for later reference. This may help inform the users of the recency of the recipient’s activity on the platform, leading to the users wanting to see if their recipients were recently active on the platform to see their interactions quickly.
Although the above may be a reason for some users to want to know the activity of other users, some other categories of Instagram users may want to know someone’s activity on the platform to determine the recency of their content (photos, videos, reels, and Instagram Status) on the platform. This way, they can determine if the user’s post or status they’re viewing is a recent one. Also, since Instagram allows timestamps on all posts unlike TikTok and other social media platforms that stick with mystery, users can easily use that to determine the recency of the users’ activity.
The “Last Active” status is an Instagram feature that lets you know If someone is available for a message or likely to respond. If you’d like to know if an Instagram account has been inactive, this feature can help you with the much-needed insights into the account.
How To See If Someone Is Active On Instagram
There are various ways users can see the activity of someone on Instagram. You can do this via the Instagram “last active” status, and via the timestamp on the content made and posted by the user. So if you want to see if someone is active on Instagram, these are ways you can view the activity status.
Using The “Last Active” Status
The following are the steps to view the activity of a user via the “last active” status feature:
Step 1: Open Instagram On Your Device
Launch the Instagram app on your mobile device or go to Instagram’s website on your computer’s browser to view the desktop app.
Step 2: Tap On The Paper Airplane Icon
Tap on the “paper airplane” icon that indicates your direct messages on Instagram. This will lead you to your messages and a list of the people you’ve contacted prior.
Step 3: View The Active Users
If you want to know which users are active, just like the Facebook green online indicator, Instagram has its own green indicator that shows that users are online. At the top of your messages, you’ll see profiles with the green indicator showing that these users are currently online and they are active now.
However, if you’ve recently messaged a user and you want to know when they were last active, click on the chat, and under their name or handle, you’ll see “active *time* ago”. This indicates that the user was active at some particular time ago.
N/B: It’s important to know that you can only do this with users that you’ve interacted with by sending them a direct message or following them as this is the only way Instagram’s algorithm will view you as mutuals and show you the user’s activity.
However, if you want to know a user’s activity without following them, read below.
Via Content Timestamp
This particular one helps you view the activity of users who aren’t your mutual contacts or you haven’t interacted with them before. The following are the steps to view their recent activity:
Step 1: Open Instagram
Launch the Instagram app on your mobile device or go to Instagram’s website on your computer’s browser to view the desktop app.
Step 2: Click On The Search Icon
Tap on the search icon below your screen. It’s the second icon from the left side of your bottom screen.
Step 3: Enter The User’s Instagram Handle
Input the user’s Instagram handle into the search bar to search for the user’s Instagram profile.
Step 4: Select The Correct Profile Handle
Instagram will scrap different handles that are similar to the handle you’ve entered but choose the one that matches the exact handle you entered.
Step 5: Navigate To The Profile’s Posts
Scroll down to the profile’s posts to see the recency of their posts to help you determine the user’s activity.
Step 6: Click On The First Post
Select the first post on the profile of the user.
Step 7: View The Timstap On The Post
Scroll down to view the timestamp of the post. If it’s a recent post, then the user was active at the indicated time. You can use this to inform yourself about the decency of the user’s activity.
However, if the user doesn’t have a post on their page, you can view their status by clicking on their Instagram profile to see if they were online on that day and posted a status. If they didn’t, then, they weren’t active recently.
It’s important to know that some Instagram users may not have posts or statuses on their pages, so you may need to interact with their profiles by following them.
Why Can’t You See If Someone Is Active On Instagram?
If you’ve communicated or interacted with someone previously, yet you can’t view the activity of that person on your Instagram, there may be a few reasons. The following are the reasons why you can’t view the activity of a user after interacting with them:
- The user isn’t following you back— since we can only view the status of who we are following and vice versa.
- You’ve never had a private conversation with them– if you’re not followed by someone and you’ve never sent them a DM, you won’t be able to view their last activity.
- They’ve switched off their last active status— If you meet the above-listed criteria and you still can’t view the user’s last active status, then they may have switched off their last active status. They may have switched this off from their account settings.
- The user has blocked you— If the user has blocked you from viewing their profile or posts, you won’t be able to view their last active status or their user profile.