Whatsapp Groups: Boon or Bane?
Really, how many groups do you have on your smartphone? 2,5,10, 15, 20?
Can we live without them today? In India we absolutely cannot…
‘Whatsapp’ needs no introduction, but if anybody in the technically connected world still does not know ‘Whatsapp’ — it is a free app for sending and receiving messages and videos. We can also form groups for various purposes. Wikipedia describes Whatsapp as ” a freeware, cross-platform messaging and Voice over IP service owned by Facebook. It allows users to send text messages and voice messages, make voice and video calls, and share images, documents, user locations, and other media’
Boon:
Quite a while back when we were in the US(I spent 14 years of my life there — 1996 -2010), communicating with our parents and loved ones in India used to be an expensive exercise — with International rates going all the way to 1$/min(or more!) . We could call only once every 2 weeks and that too the call had to be short and to the point!
Fast forward 20 years later, communication has improved tremendously and we are ever thankful for it. A variety of tools have appeared and has put our life at ease and we can talk with anyone across the globe without shelling out a fortune. News can be shared instantaneously all over the globe at no cost at all!! Calls to India from USA, calls to USA from India and many other places around the world have become extremely easy.
Sharing pictures, videos has also become easier and we share plenty with family and friends through Whatsapp in a much more safer way.
There are amazing number of Whatsapp groups that develop on my phone every few minutes or seconds(yes, I am exaggerating a bit here…– but you get the point)… there are family groups, friends groups, birthday groups, class groups and more and more…. School groups, college groups , latest friends groups, past friends groups and if you have kids — there are groups for them too!! Being a social person, I love every body in all my groups …
but….
Bane:
It is quite an irony that we were craving for better communication even 5 years back — and now that we have achieved that… I wonder if all the communication is worth it? Did all of the groups solve all our communication needs or are we just talking more and more and remaining at the same question in the conversation?
Sometimes, the groups also grow very fast and too many of them sit without any activity on my phone. I compulsorily have had to quit many of them — either due to excessive activity or lack of activity. How do you handle the multitude groups and the different conversations with so many people? Do you patiently read all the messages or do you feel overwhelmed and quit it right away?
My wish:
- I think like Facebook and other social media platforms, it would be good if the person’s consent is asked before adding a person to a Whatsapp group!
- What if each Whatsapp group had a lock?
- What if we could check the authenticity of a message? This would definitely reduce the spread of fake news….
Let’s see if any of my wishes gets implemented any day…
In the mean time, what do you feel about the various Whatsapp groups? Do they overwhelm you or do you love them and cannot imagine a life without them? :)
This article originally appeared here.
