[14000rpm]

2 years since I deleted Whatsapp from my phone(s). Don't have a facebook account so far. With these 2 out, I've Cut-out most of the noise.

Viber and Telegram are working well enough for me. The people I 'want' to connect with regularly are on these 2 apps. That works me well enough. Feature-wise all are the same anyway.
Every once in a while I do get the feeling that I'm missing out connecting with the 'lost' connects that I could possibly find on facebook and/or whatsapp but then, I ask around and get contact details and I call. old school way.

That makes me a Dinosaur perhaps.

[dailydriver]

Confirming something that all of us knew had happened in the last few years because of the onslaught of social media, a study in UK has revealed:

44% of 18-24 year olds said they felt more comfortable using social media, messaging apps and online to talk to people they didn't know, with only 37% feeling more comfortable speaking face to face. This compares to just over two thirds (67%) of those aged 55 and over.

The new study found that:

18 to 24 year olds are roughly 20 times more likely to never speak to their neighbours, than those aged 55 and over (21% compared with 1%). And 27% of 18-24 year olds have never spoken to someone they didn't know on public transport - more than five times the rate for those aged 55 and over (5 per cent) - with nearly half (47 per cent) saying they prefer to listen to music on their headphones instead.

Going by the way our younger generation is glued to their smartphones 24/7, the condition in India too couldn't be vastly different.

Link

[subraiyr]

A very interesting article on India's leap into whatsapp appeared in some papers earlier this month

http://www.business-standard.com/art...2300190_1.html

I find it absolutely maddening at times with Whatsapp.

1. Intrusion into personal space - Having a cup of coffee with your spouse has become a challenge thanks to constant cravings to look down on the beeping messages. (not me, my spouse)

2. The elderly who have managed to crack the digital code now send whatsapp messages and half hour later call up and ask why we have not responded to their messages. Maddening forwards, spiritual pictures and urban legends are what they send across

3. I take a sick leave and my boss checks on my status on whatsapp and bingo there goes the day

It is sick, it is pervasive but it does become a necessary nuisance at times. Reaching out to your colleagues during client meets for updates can be just one. With groups in the pic asking for emergency responses to situations is another big one. One to many messaging does have its benefits

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by subraiyr

1. Intrusion into personal space - Having a cup of coffee with your spouse has become a challenge thanks to constant cravings to look down on the beeping messages. (not me, my spouse) ...

Spouse comparison!

I'd describe my spouse as a phone addict, although sightly recovered in recent years. She is one of those people that always prioritise an incoming phone call over a face-to-face conversation.

I don't think the key is "mobile phone." I remember a story from a colleague, told when these things were barely dreamed of, about a guy in a small publishing company, with a desk piled with orders that took him weeks to get around too. However, an incoming order by phone got processed immediately!

Long since, I decided not to give the phone priority in my life. There is nothing wrong with actually not answering it! Similarly, in work, I stopped walking over to someone else's desk to pick up their phone to tell them, guess what, the person was not there*. A few more rings and the caller gets that point anyway.

Which brings me back to my point... Said spouse is a bit of a phone addict, but she is not a Whatsapp addict. She specifically keeps it on a separate device to her phone. Yes, she can spend hours Whatsapp chatting, and is one of the people congesting India's internet backbone with good-morning-etc messages, but when she is not doing that, she is not doing that. I don't think she even has a ringtone for Whatsapp messages (if so, it is pretty unobtrusive!) so she is not distracted by them unless or until she decides to do Whatsapp.

For me... It is just another messaging system, with more capability than SMS. I find it very useful. Miscellaneous people who add me to their good-morning-good-night-god-loves-you lists just get blocked unless or until I need to communicate with them. God doesn't love me (in fact we don't get on very well at all ) and all those pictorial wishes at every conceivable time of day do nothing for my life. But hey, my spouse sometimes sends me some lovely bird pictures! Because she likes birds, and so do I. And you can't do that with SMS.




*I mean, outside my department, so it's not as if I could help. Take a message? I'm not an answering machine.

[DCEite]

Originally Posted by subraiyr

I find it absolutely maddening at times with Whatsapp.

1. Intrusion into personal space - Having a cup of coffee with your spouse has become a challenge thanks to constant cravings to look down on the beeping messages. (not me, my spouse)

2. The elderly who have managed to crack the digital code now send whatsapp messages and half hour later call up and ask why we have not responded to their messages. Maddening forwards, spiritual pictures and urban legends are what they send across

3. I take a sick leave and my boss checks on my status on whatsapp and bingo there goes the day

It is sick, it is pervasive but it does become a necessary nuisance at times. Reaching out to your colleagues during client meets for updates can be just one. With groups in the pic asking for emergency responses to situations is another big one. One to many messaging does have its benefits

This post made my day.

Wholeheartedly agree with elder's messages. Mostly urban legends and good morning/evening messages that are extremely irritating. I have hard time explaining my elders that this or that message is a hoax and do not believe blindly in whatsapp forwards.

[indian21r]

Whatsapp offers a convenience that cannot be denied.

1. People with even basic smartphone and no email can also communicate effectively without much hassle
   
2. It comes with free sms which is one of the reasons it picked up so quickly in India
   
3. Groups conversations are a boon
   
4. Office communications have become quick
   
5. sharing location is quick

But it comes with a rider no one is informed about. It is addictive

It was email in the past which took loads of my time. Man what a waste of time it is nowadays with all the random forwards. I have ditched all the social media longtime back except for this. I was able to get out of groups where I was inactive. But still there was the itch to see whatsapp ever so frequently.

Finally I got down to amicable solution. I will respond to it only at scheduled times of the day. Update my status message with the same. Currently going at 5 times a day which I plan to reduced further.

[blackwasp]

Finally some sensible news in a while. Personally I think this menace of forwards is a bit too much. Esp with elder folks who keep forwarding stuff without even reading. Despite talking to them in my family, after 1-2 weeks the are back to forwarding all kinds of stuff.

WhatsApp is rolling out a global test measure to rein in messages forwarded by users, the messaging app said, after the spread of rumors led to several killings in India and sparked calls for action from authorities.

“We believe that these changes - which we’ll continue to evaluate - will help keep WhatsApp the way it was designed to be: a private messaging app,” WhatsApp said in a blog post on Thursday, announcing its worldwide test of limits on forwards.

Source: Reuters

[landcruiser123]

Originally Posted by subraiyr

2. The elderly who have managed to crack the digital code now send whatsapp messages and half hour later call up.....

3. I take a sick leave and my boss checks on my status on whatsapp and bingo there goes the day

2: I can't leave family groups for the reason- someone keeps adding me back. A ton of trash in the groups- just can't see the important updates at all

3: You don't need to let everyone know what you are doing

Originally Posted by indian21r

[*]It comes with free sms which is one of the reasons it picked up so quickly in India
[*]Groups conversations are a boon

It became popular as Indians were charged per SMS sent.
In the US, everyone still texts and they use facebook/groupme for the group messages.

[landcruiser123]

http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/09/a...killed-me.html

I think this is a good article to read

[Samurai]

Looks like video bloggers on Youtube also have serious problems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUrNbl1lNV4

[am1m]

Have a slightly different experience from most of the WhatsApp users. While I got my first cell phone in '01 with my first job, I refused to upgrade to a smart phone till about 2010 when the job responsibilities made it necessary to respond to e-mail on the phone. Then I refused to install WhatsApp till last year and I only did it because it would be very difficult to co-ordinate with the people involved in the sport I pursue on weekends. For a while, a couple of them were very nice and would SMS/call me with the details of the plans made on their WhatsApp groups and co-ordinate, but I couldn't continue to take advantage of that.

So now I'm on just 2 WhatsApp groups, both related to the activity. And nothing else. No one else even knows I'm on WhatsApp, not my family (except my wife), not my school or college buddies, not my colleagues. Of course once in a while one of them will see that my number can be added to a group and will add me or message me on WhatsApp, but I don't respond and leave instantly. When they ask (over SMS or call, or when we meet) I mumble something about 'having installed it a long time ago for a project, but don't have it now on my phone'. Given my long-standing reputation for (selective ) neo-luddism, they usually just accept that.

I do feel bad once in a while about lying, but seeing the kind of absolute 'rubbish-nonsense' that my wife receives on her various family/friends/college groups everyday, I think I'm doing the right thing!

On the downside, the biggest leverage my spouse now has over me for purposes of blackmail/threats is, "I'll tell your mom/aunt/college buddies you're actually on What'sApp..."

[shipnil]

I am also one of those who like to keep whatsapp to a minimum. Within couple of years only I realized the negative effects of whatsapp when any and every person in my addressbook started adding me to whatsapp groups or started sending good morning, good night messages.

Solution. I deregisered whatsapp for that number, deleted the account and got me a second number which I have given to a very very limited set of persons for the purpose of whatsapp. I am part of just two groups. In general, during an usual day, I get about 4 to 5 messages. Fairly manageable.

Only drawback is, it kind of made whatsapp a paid service for me. Reason being I have to keep recharging this number to keep it active. I know, after registering I can use data plan of any number or wifi to get the messages but I am also into trying out different ROMs and everytime I change a ROM I have to re-register on whatsapp, hence the need to keep the number active.

[xcentrk]

Originally Posted by am1m

Have a slightly different experience from most of the WhatsApp users. .....

Wow! Finally good to see fellow countrymen who is not an WhatsApp user. It's been really hard to explain this to everyone, when I say "I don't have WhatsApp. I will share it to you through SMS/Mail etc". I mean, we all use Android phones which must be mapped to an Gmail account. Why not share the attachment through mail?

Except my dad, no one else in my home installed WA. But my sisters had WA and I can see what kind of messages they get in the groups. Mostly pure rubbish, forwards and propaganda messages made me assure that I did the right thing.

But now that I am going to start my business, my first requirement was WA for Business. No other way around. So I got a new number for business, new phone and installed WA, and didn't tell anyone.

Not having WA, FB or Insta made me look like old-age piece of wonder among my colleagues, friends and family but it never bothered me. Even if I leave my phone in my home and go out, I hardly worry except when I am expecting an important call, which is not very frequent.

I now feel like I have more time to spend with family and even when I am just relaxing in my bed, I don't have the urge to check up on my phone and with WA out of the picture, I can see only a few of my friends call me to check up on me and that made me realize I'm glad I have some good friends.

[pratyush6]

I am not on Facebook. However, Whatsapp, I don't really have a choice as I use it to call my family back in India and friends spread across different parts of the world.

I am rarely a part of any group, except my closet friends who would almost never send any useless forwards, mostly those are jokes. However, my parents keep sending the most ridiculous things I have ever seen. I wonder how do they even get it. I mean serious graphic images. If it was a 20 year old sending it, I would probably understand, but my parents? I hope Whatsapp comes up with a Graphic image filter.

It does not really take up time though. As a rule I don't keep my phone near by bed, while work, its always on DND, so I am rarely bothered by the pings.

What is worrying though is that so much misinformation is spread using WA and there is no way to curb it.

[boniver]

I flushed out all social media from my life two years ago, after a sudden revelation. Deleted my YouTube channel, my Facebook profile, WhatsApp, everything. Managed fine for a couple of months since my class 12 board exams were on and I anyway didn't pay attention to social media. My parents and closest friends emailed/called me when needed. I also remember we re-discovered Skype around this time, and used to spend long hours studying together.

Two years later, I still don't have a Facebook or YouTube account. However, I absolutely HAVE to be on WhatsApp, because 19-20 year olds (my friends) these days don't want to use anything else to communicate. I have to rush into college since I'm perpetually late every morning, and once classes get over I have to rush out to grab a bite before heading off for my tuitions. Thus, I have no time to painstakingly go through the college notice board for any important information (regarding exams etc.). Likewise, checking the college website everyday for updates is again a pain. WhatsApp is a big plus when it comes to this. The college groups are critical when it comes to providing updates, and before exams it helps a lot since notes get circulated around too. Recently, I would have almost missed the deadline for signing up for my semester exams, had I not checked my WhatsApp. I ended up submitting my form on the last day.

Thankfully though, while my parents are currently probably the country's leaders when it comes to forwarding stuff over WhatsApp, they don't send anything to me.

About taking up a lot of my time, no. I don't use data on my phone, and since I was heavily addicted to the internet at one point, I've gotten the home WiFi disconnected as well. Whenever the need arises at home, I ask my parents to turn on their hotspots. I don't need my phone to do anything when I'm on the road. On the very rare occasion that I need to book an Uber or something, I use the widely available public WiFi hotspots (Jionet, Railwire etc).