You can now see when your friends are online on Instagram

Sometimes you want to have a real-time conversation with someone, but that can’t happen if the person you want to talk to isn’t using the app you are at the same time. Sure, they’ll probably get a notification letting them know you’ve sent a Direct Message their way, to which they can respond or ignore accordingly. But sometimes you just want to know if the person you want to talk to, or any one of your friends for that matter, is online at the same time as you. And now you can if you’re using Instagram.

Announced on Thursday, Instagram is adding the ability to see when your friends and contacts are online. There are some important details to be aware of, though. First, you will only be able to see if someone’s online if they have added you back or if you have already had a conversation via DM. So you won’t be able to see just anyone’s online availability.

To see if a friend is online, there will be a green dot next to their profile name. You’ll be able to see it in the friend’s list, when you share a post from the feed, or in the Direct Inbox. You will also be able to change your status as you see fit, so if you don’t ever want to appear online, you can make that happen.

The new feature is available now.

source: androidandme