My teenager is always on their phone and I keep seeing this “Active now” or “Active X minutes ago” status under their name when I open Instagram. Does this mean they’re actually using the app at that moment, or does it just show up randomly? Trying to figure out how accurate it actually is before I bring it up with them.
Yeah that status is pretty reliable — “Active now” means Instagram’s app is open or was recently used on their device, and “Active X minutes ago” shows roughly when they last had it open. It’s not perfectly precise to the second but it’s generally accurate enough that if it says 2 minutes ago, they were probably on it 2 minutes ago.
One thing to know though — it can sometimes show “active” just from notifications pinging the app in the background, so don’t go full detective mode if it’s off by a few minutes. Before making it a big deal, honestly just check Instagram’s built-in Screen Time on their phone (iOS Screen Time or Android Digital Wellbeing) — that’ll give you a way cleaner picture of total daily usage than stalking the active status. 