WhatsApp, the demon in disguise.

As the #DeleteFacebook movement subsides, as we got served with some much-needed reality check there might be another hazard lurking in the dark which must be taken out if we are to win our battles. We are talking about none other than our beloved no. 1 trending app in Play Store, WhatsApp. With a whopping 1.3 Billion active users in a month. What’s at stake might not be your privacy but something of equal magnitude. Long gone are the halcyon days when its sole purpose was to connect individuals, it is raging an out war at you and its purpose, take you farther and farther away from your goals. If you are someone who struggles to get the most important tasks in your day checked out or has trouble focusing on something worth your while or is loomed inside negative thoughts and most of your energy is spent in fighting these thoughts and feels like an uphill climb doing it? The solution could lie in revisiting the usage of your phone and especially the supposedly most important app installed on it, WhatsApp.

Never in the wildest dreams would have someone imagined an app would be so widely used even my milkman has found its utility. He drops in a message to every one of his subscribers as a reminder to let know the due date of his service is approaching and we subscribers, in turn, can use the app as a messenger in case a query or grievance needs to be addressed as calling over the phone is considered sinister these days. We all are well aware when it comes to social media and connectivity, more is certainly not merrier. As our phones are bombarded with incessant useless information left, right and centre, a toll is being taken on us on a much deeper level as these messages fight to gain our attention, things that really matters takes a backseat. Our minds have limited information processing power which is getting drained as we go through these “exasperating” messages which has got nothing of value to provide. As we swim across the deluge of group messages and good mornings and jokes, political propaganda and fake science, as we indulge in unending chat sessions and forward sprees are we forgetting the fact that there are much more things for us to achieve than seeing double ticks across our chats and derive mental kicks from dopamine spikes every time our phones light up with the icon of a telephone receiver engulfed in a conversation bubble drenched in green with white outline.

We are a generation of men and women who do not know how to hold an eye to eye conversation but are expert conversationalists should a touchscreen keyboard be provided. All the credits and applauds to who? You guessed it right, our very own hero of the conversation, WhatsApp. I know individuals who abhor the idea of receiving a call and will provide a lecture on time management should the threshold is passed but would happily dedicate hours on a stretch chatting away lighting up the brain providing it with the steady surge of dopamine which it seeks in desperation.

What alarms me is the majority of us are hypnotized by this wonder-app that we do not even realize the adversities and are often passed as a harmless habit. We are hopelessly dependent that we cannot help but give in to the marvels the app has got to offer like a moth getting attracted to candlelight despite knowing it can burn it down but cannot fight the urge and ultimately give in to death. As we fail to fight the demons surrounding us and continue to stay “hooked” to some invention which turned its founders billionaires and made its users a victim of business? Or maybe the blame should go to its own users who abused a tool which was bestowed on us as a blessing. You be the judge.

I cannot help but be amazed as I discern how weak our defence systems are that we traded our promises and oaths we took for ourselves for a screen getting lighted up. Why cannot we fight back? Why cannot we reclaim our lives? Why are we not protesting and letting an invention puppeteer us without putting up any fight? Let us ponder over this for a while. Does it take a catastrophe to mend our ways?

The first step in reclaiming back your life is realizing there needs a change, now that I assume we are already through that phase, what follows is taking action, we do not have much of a choice but to rid ourselves of the app. I can understand your agony of hey, I cannot rid myself of this app as this is the only way to reach my friends. In such a case if getting rid of the app is not an option how about we go through some other options? How about leaving groups which no longer serve you, how about muting the groups which you can’t leave so that the groups are used on your own terms. How about disabling the notifications of the app altogether and limit the no. of visits to 2 times per day. I know it is hard, well guess what, yes it is, it is called a demon for a reason.

Let’s take some effort to reclaim our powers back shall we?

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