Alright, so the other day I was just scrolling through TikTok, you know, like usual, trying to kill some time. I noticed that little green dot next to some friends’ profile pictures in my inbox. Looked it up, turns out it’s the ‘Active Status’ thing, showing when people are actually using the app right then.
I thought, huh, might be useful. Sometimes you wanna know if someone’s around to see that funny video you just sent, right? Or maybe I wanted people to know I was available for a quick chat. So, I decided I gotta turn mine on too.
Figuring it Out
First things first, I opened up TikTok. Landed on the ‘For You’ page, obviously. Then I tapped on my ‘Profile’ icon, the little person thingy down in the bottom right corner. That took me to my own page with all my videos and stuff.
Okay, now where would this setting be? I looked around my profile page for a bit. Didn’t see anything obvious like “Turn on Active Status Here!”. Figures it wouldn’t be that simple.
My next guess was the main settings menu. I tapped the three horizontal lines up in the top right corner. That popped open a menu at the bottom of the screen. Saw ‘Settings and privacy’ there, seemed like the right place. So I tapped that.
Deep Dive into Settings
Now I’m in the main settings area. Lots of options here. Account, Content & Display, Cache… I scrolled down, looking for something related to privacy or status.
Under the ‘Account’ section, I saw ‘Privacy’. That sounded promising. Tap.
Inside the Privacy settings, I scanned the options again. Security, Blocked accounts… ah, there it was! Activity Status. Clear as day, once you know where to look.
I tapped on ‘Activity Status’. It took me to a screen with just one toggle switch. It literally just said ‘Activity Status’ with a little explanation that turning it on lets mutual followers see when you’re active.
- Opened TikTok app.
- Went to my Profile (bottom right icon).
- Tapped the three lines (top right corner).
- Selected ‘Settings and privacy’.
- Chose ‘Privacy’.
- Found ‘Activity Status’.
The switch was greyed out, meaning it was off. I just tapped the toggle switch. Boom. It slid over and turned green. Done.
There wasn’t any big confirmation message, just the switch turning green. To check, I went back to my inbox and looked at a friend’s profile who I follow and follows me back. Sure enough, if they were online, I could see the green dot now, and I assume they could see mine too. Pretty simple once I actually found the menu item. Took a minute of poking around, but got there in the end. Now everyone knows when I’m avoiding my responsibilities by watching TikTok videos. Great.
