Random Ramblings

Without the time-swallowing app!

kavyajanani

Time-swallowing app? What’s that? You might not even know that that app is consuming most of your time…err…most of your life, I must say! Unable to identify? Well, this app has become a part and parcel of our daily life. You cannot imagine a day without it. It is actually a universal phenomenon. Can you feel a connect with it now? Yes, it is WhatsApp! So the very word ‘WhatsApp’ itself is enough to ring a thousand euphoric bells inside your mind. It has become such important that you can even go without food, but not live without WhatsApp. People think that it is the only way by which they can remain connected to their close friends and relatives. But I am going to prove you wrong.

Well, I uninstalled WhatsApp for two weeks. I don’t use it much right from the day it was launched in the market. I am not comfortable with the idea that anyone who has your number can add you (read WhatsApp you). I like to be in touch only with a few close friends. But there is this irritating acquaintance who pings me often and annoying groups which don’t do anything productive than send unnecessary forward & chain messages. And in addition to all these, WhatsApp has introduced privacy intrusion features too! Like the ‘last seen at…’ and the blue ticks to indicate that a message has been read. For instance, I am busy with an important chat. At that time, someone else messages me. I read that message and choose to reply later. Since I have seen the message and it changes to blue ticks, the other person might feel that I am ignoring him or her. Or they might also bombard me with even more messages. Just imagine how irritating that would be! It is completely an intrusion of privacy.

WhatsApp statuses have become such a rage that even the birth of a baby or loss of a loved one is announced through them. Some people use the app only to pry on others’ statuses and display pictures. How ridiculous it seems! Many will even message you out of the blue, if they see a status from you that intrigues them.

When I announced to some of my regular friends that I am going to uninstall it for a few days, they were like ‘What???’. They even presumed that I had turned insane. Some of the reactions were:

“Are you mad? What’d you do without WhatsApp?”

“Are you that busy?”

“How will you keep in touch with your friends?”

“When will you be back?”

After answering all types of bizarre queries, I finally deleted the app from my phone. I must say that it was after that I attained eternal peace in my life. There was no need to check for new messages from time to time. There was no need to even pick up my phone or switch on the mobile data! There were no gratuitous noise (read friends). Finally, I could figure out who my true friends were. Those who thought that I was a part of their life, kept in touch with me through other means. Some even went to the extent of calling me up. I was overwhelmed. At the same time, I learnt that a few who were close to me on WhatsApp, weren’t really meant to be close in real life.

I was happy with my five to six close friends rather than 228 WhatsApp friends. I was also able to concentrate on the task at hand, not needing to worry about unreplied messages. I found many productive ways to lead my life rather than spend time on WhatsApp. I upgraded myself with recent news when I would have been guffawing at absurd trolls and memes from the various groups. I must say that that was the best thing I had done in my life. I was at peace without the time-swallowing app. Yes, for your information, I existed!

Though I have reinstalled the app (to share a few photos with my close friends), I still feel that days-without-WhatsApp were the most peaceful days. No matter how many friends you might have on WhatsApp, only those who are true to you will help you in times of need and be with you during your good & bad days. Don’t worry about anything. Just uninstall and watch the show! Share your experiences in a blog post, just like I did!

Happy WhatsApping…err…Happy Life! 🙂

12 thoughts on “Without the time-swallowing app!”

  3. Yay! At last I can stop feeling guilty that I do not have the App that is the ‘in thing’ today! Most of my childhood friends with whom I had managed to re-establish relationship after years through FB actually switched to WA and I lost being in touch with most of them. My crime? I didn’t have a whatsapp. Not that FB is any better, but still …..Thanks for the lovely write-up – crisp, to-the-point and very, very apt!

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  4. Haha, the owner of Whatsapp is going to bulge his eyes crazy at this! XD Great post! I use Whatsapp too but I usually keep my phone out in the living room and lock myself in my room, only picking it up after I’m done with the work I’m obligated to. But I must admit it is a huge distraction. I sometimes feel like uninstalling the thing too but couldn’t get my heart to do it for some strange reason 😀 Ah well. The app has its ups and downs and the only way to move on for people like me is to just look at the ups and go on with the flow. Hehe. And like you too, Kavya, I highly disapprove of those blue ticks. Robs our privacy completely and does cause the person at the other end of the line to heat up when we don’t reply when we’re busy. I wish that wasn’t there.

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    1. Rightly pointed out Deepika! 🙂
      I wish the owner could really read this post and many other similar ones disapproving of WhatsApp’s privacy features. He’d at least retrace his steps and introduce the app with its basic version, which was much better. 😀 😀

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      1. Exactly! *high five* the initial version was soooooo much better. I liked that. The current new one’s a little … I don’t know … not as pretty? 😀

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  5. Indeed Watsapp, the #1 global platform of the communications it got pros and cons too.
    The world before watsapp and after watsapp is much different. People are asking for our watsapp when we first meet them. But not our contact number, this is because we have to give them our contact number to share our watsapp Id.

    This became a fashion now-a-days 🙂 it is like if one possess watsapp and the other not then people will show a different attitude for him/her who doesn’t have it. They treat them like an extinct species and an ancient person.

    There are few people, whom I interacted with and they got Watsapp on their devices just to show off but not to use it. By this we know how demanding this app is.

    But, it is a complete personal thing to use it or not. For many employees, students and even ploice departments are using the watsapp to connect and share the information.
    I recently read a post on a newsletter that instead of a toll-free number they gave a watsapp number.

    A very nice post Kavya 🙂 we can live free without this app as long as it is demanded in our lives.

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    1. As you pointed out, police department has even solved many cases with the use of WhatsApp. I am not telling that it is completely a useless app. Like other apps, it has got its own pros and cons. But sadly youngsters of nowadays are overloading themselves with the cons rather than the pros.

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