Eloquent Silence...Whatsappitis

All characters appearing in this are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. But, I have a hunch that I might find some resemblances. How many of you have found yourselves even checking your friends status messages and wondered the reason behind their strange or happy statuses, or scrolled to see the profile pictures updates even if you are not chatting or waited for your cell phone to beep and then checking your WhatsApp every now and then for some forwarded messages, jokes and trolls? Congratulations, you have turned addiction in a tech form whatsappitis.  It is the ultimate empty-calorie brain candy. WhatsApp is super colossal and crowd pleasing making the good old sms seems prehistoric. We have free choices, but they always come at a price.

• WhatsApp 'Status' feature is so good that it creates a familiar environment. For Example: Sneha is online but not yet responded, Ayan is always online and gives instant response may be he checks his phone 1400 times a day, Arbaaz was last seen on 24/11/2012 at 2:00 AM, John Abraham’s status cannot be seen because he blocked me – Oh Ouch that breaks my heart! Footprints (Status) of WhatsApp have a great impact on mind on a regular user, even if you are not close to your WhatsApp contact, just this virtual interaction leaves a trace. According to psychologist a communication which has no face, strangely can be more effective.

 

• Now comes the second apocalypse – any guesses? The Blue ticks! Now some friends and relatives with impatient psychopathic tendencies may attest to the fact that blue tick is the most inspired addition to the whatsapp and ‘ways to stalk people’. In Saudi Arabia a man divorced his wife as he was furious with her for ignoring her messages. Have our relationships become so shallow? While it has proved useful to know who is reading your message and who isn’t, on the other side of the spectrum, it has also made things difficult from the recipient’s point of view, who is compelled to reply immediately.  Where are the good old days, where you used to get weeks to ponder over a hand written letter or email before replying? So the question here is an instant response better than a heartfelt one.

 

• The misuse and impact of this courier is not limited to children or teenagers’. According to research conducted recently, it came out that between 80 to 90% of people connected to internet use WhatsApp and only 5% to 9% use it properly.  WhatsApp is making us into watchdogs, and for some users it’s mentally isolating from the real world and their entire emotions are being restricted to the app– taking them away from their families and friends. They are so in to it that they cannot help theme self without constantly chatting, replying and sharing all the time, regardless of the scenario and if something goes out of proportion you will kept fixing is entire day, this way it steal away your productive work and you end up lost your precious time, days and years.

 

Apart from this, the aspect which we completely ignore is the asterix of legal mumbo jumbo which we blindly accepted. WhatsApp is not even a secure means of communication anybody can notoriously eavesdrop into chats and files. And who knows if they are collect behavioral data analyzing phone no.s, contacts to create a social graph for targeting you.

It is good to keep in touch with your dear and loved ones but excess of everything is always bad.  Here is a triad of solutions that I recommend

• Instead of chatting all day, set a time constraint control the urge of checking your account every minute while you’re working, studying. Take some time out to do other activities watch movies, do some outdoor chores, handout with neighbors and friends, engage yourself with some other work etc. If someone experiencing it, it's recommended to take yourself off from WhatsApp.
• Use a third party service to lock your WA if you use it for sensitive information sharing and go to your settings and – restrict access of your profile photos, last seen stamps, statuses to strangers, disable blue ticks and deactivate your WA by emailing them if you lose your phone.
• Be ultra-careful of what you talk about here don't send personal information if you can possibly avoid it -- addresses, phone numbers, email addresses -- and never send your bank, social security or credit card details, or your passport or other identification details. Just one small piece of advice for those significantly troubling scenarios please pick up that phone and make the call.

 

Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our own story, interrupts our ability to have a thought or a daydream, to imagine something wonderful, because we're too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the office on the cell phone. My question remains does it benefit our modem of communication or rather has a derogatory effect on our interpersonal relationships.

Speech delivered on 3rd June 2015 - CDTM.