Instagram has gained a lot of new features on top of the photo-sharing that it originally focused on, including ephemeral stories and video chat. Today Instagram revealed a new feature for the app's Direct messaging component.
Starting today, Instagram Direct will show an "Active now" indicator with a green dot when your friends are active on Instagram. This indicator will appear in your Direct inbox and on your friend list when you share a post from your feed.
Instagram says that you'll only see an active status for friends who follow you or people who you've talked to in Direct. If you don't care for this indicator, you can hide your status and turn off the ability to see when your friends are active by going into Settings > Activity Status and disabling the feature.
Back at the start of 2018, Instagram Direct gained a new feature that'd tell you when your friends were last active in the app. Now Instagram is improving on the feature by adding a green dot and an "Active now" indicator to let you know when your friends are around and ready to chat with you.