Instagram DMs Get "Last Active" Feature: Here's How To Disable It

Instagram has added a feature that has some users upset: a small notice that alerts others to when you were last active on that app. As with Facebook's past decision to add read receipts to its chat platform, Instagram's new feature makes managing one's digital social life a little trickier. Fortunately, the company has given its users the ability to disable the activity status, making it possible to stop others from snooping on your habits.

The issue with read receipts and things like "last active" is simple: the person on the receiving end merely sees that info, but no further context behind it. So, for example, perhaps a user sends you a DM, but you don't respond right away. Maybe even hours go by, but that other users sees that you've been active on the app recently, or maybe that you're on it right now.

That could lead to issues if that person decides that you're ignoring their message, though that may not be the case — some things just can't be answered in the moment, after all. Getting rid of the feature is some users go-to solution for this unfortunate problem.

If you're one of them and you have an active Instagram account, you can get rid of the activity status easily:

- Go into the app's "Settings" menu.

- Scroll to "Show Activity Status" in the menu.

- Turn the toggle switch to "Off"

This will disable the feature entirely, so no one will be able to snoop on your activity, but you won't be able to snoop on your friends' activity, either.