Whatsapp- What’s up?
There is no doubt that the
instant messaging application WhatsApp has become the rage today because it is
so good to use. We can send texts, photos, videos and audio notes to each other
at almost zero price (hardly a dollar); we can even create different chat
groups and chat with many people in a same message box. All these advantages
make WhatsApp become indispensable in our daily life. Some people have already
stopped using traditional instant messaging function, which is normally
preinstalled in every cell phone, using WhatsApp whenever they want to text
their contacts instead.
But are we just ignoring its
possible down shots?
Let me be clear: I have nothing
against people who use WhatsApp, but I am very concerned about those who allow
WhatsApp to use them!
In my profession I come across and
interact with many students. I have been closely observing the effect of WhatsApp
on a student’s life and I claim that the effect is more adverse and detrimental
to one’s career.
Following are my observations:
1. Whatsapp Status: Most important point worth noting is the WhatsApp
'Status' feature. It is so good that it creates a familiar environment. For
Example: Neha is online but not yet responded, Ayan is always online and gives
instant response, Arbaaz was last seen on 24/11/2012 at 2:00 AM, John status
cannot be seen because he blocked me etc. These are the details which creates a
great impact on mind. Even if you are not close to your WhatsApp contact, this
virtual interaction has great impact than physical interaction.
2. Text, without feelings: Psychologically,
the impact and imagination goes with text. A good text can create huge impact
and similarly an irrational text can be disaster. The text becomes the sole
means of emotion; you can easily hide your actual feeling and trick people.
3. Emoticons: One of the important
feature of watsapp but has the potential to ruin one’s life! This is a grave
issue, wherein the one reading at the other ends is hoaxed with texts and wrong
emoticons. Imagine a scenario where person A is hanging out with his friends
and in parallel, having a watsapp chat with person B. Person A is actually laughing at the fullest and in parallel sends
a crying smiley to person B. Now, visualize the signal sent across to person B
and its consequence on the mind. Needless to explain it further.
4. Mobile Screen- our world: Here is
another observation. In a party or any sort of gathering, if any of your friend
is long sitting in corner operating his cell phone? Well, this is another major
issue of this addictive messenger. The impacts are so powerful that users leave
the real world interest, their entire emotion is restricted to the app, they
get happy or sad depending on the reply they get from other users. WhatsApp
users has serious addiction issue, they are hypnotized and controlled by other
users. They are so into it that they cannot help themself without constantly
chatting, replying and sharing all the time, regardless of the scenario.
5. Instant
pleasure: The impacts are serious on regular day to day life. (at college
or at work), it offers a pleasure that gives you nothing but constant
dependency, you will keep on reading status, replying and sharing. If something
goes out of proportion, you will keep fixing it entire day, this way it steals
away your productive work and you end up lost your precious time, days and
years.
6. Comprehension
problems: If we communicate
primarily through the screen, we do not learn the subtleties of real life
communication - such as body language, tone of voice, gestures, etc.
7. Instant messenger, instant depression:
After spending a lot of time on watsapp,
some become anxious and moody. Also, a vulnerable person may suffer from
depression when he reads great things happening to his friends, and his life is
not so great in comparison, especially because news sharing is viral on
watsapp. Those who experience "Watsapp depression" usually have
trouble with social interactions in general.
I’ve been observing the above
points for more than couple of years now and here are some free advises (especially for
students):
1. Limit your
use whatsapp use: Limiting your whatsapp usage to a defined time span
will reduce your dependency on the app. Of course this is a personal judgment, around
30minutes in a day sounds fair enough (for a person who is already addicted)!
2. Offline
when in college: Preferably, switch off the data connection of your
mobile phone when in college. Highly unlikely that you will need a working data
connection (for an email or any other purpose) and hence it is suggested that
you remain offline. This will drastically increase your productivity when in
college and reduce the disturbances caused due to frequent beeps/rings.
3. Cautious usage of emoticons/text: Don’t
get bluffed by disastrous texts or false emoticons. This is a critical topic
and one needs to be extra cautious in this regards.
4. Last seen, doesn’t matter: Avoid
observing the last seen status of a user unless the reply you are expecting is very
urgent. Again, a very critical topic and one needs intense control over the self
to practice this.
Whatsapp- What’s up? :)