See you on the other side
I deleted Whatsapp. And I am none the worse. Things are brighter and more peaceful. Coincidently my first day of freedom from Whatsapp was on April Fool’s Day. Who is the fool here? I will let you speculate. Try and be objective. Freedom from anything is superior than slavery isn’t it?
I got introduced to Whatsapp in 2013. It was fun in the beginning and a great way to keep in touch with your close family and friends. But slowly the turf got murkier and sticker. The groups increased imperceptibly. Family groups, School groups, college groups, work groups, friends groups… It was fun for a while. But without realising, we got seriously addicted. Every spare time was spent browsing Whatsapp. There would always be some group with some new messages. You would take your phone to call someone or check a mail or browse for some important information but end up chatting on Whatsapp for hours. Then the kids started school and there were school groups that discussed everything from homework to weather. The latter became important when heavy downpurs often closed the school and this was a fast way to get the news across. Then your kids grew up some more and started using your whatsapp to chat with their friends. Other websites started using Whatsapp for posting receipts, travel tickets, movie tickets… It was bloody convenient.
One fine day I got bugged with the distraction. I wanted to get back to reading. Reading books I mean. And I muted groups. But that wasn’t effective enough and I stopped all notifications. That helped. But now I was fast losing interest in Whatsapp itching to delete it but realised how badly we were entangled with it coz now important school groups were on Whatsapp and so was work. Besides, well meaning friends didn’t let you get out of Whatsapp groups.
Ever since I read about targeted advertisements, privacy worries, third party data sale etc, particularly rampant via FB, I was increasingly sceptic and finally deleted my FB account in 2015. It was dormant for years before I deleted the account. I got out of Instagram in early 2020. It was a NEW year resolution, one that I didnt break. I got so sick of scrolling on Instagram that the break was clean. I didnt miss it a single day after deleteing. When FB bought whatsapp in 2014, it made Brian Acton rich. And I knew things would change. And then the general election of 2014 and then 2019 made whatsapp a hot bed of festering fake forwards which were now being used for party propoganda and bigoted uncles and friends got into the act. That was really the last straw but one. The only thing that was putting me off were the school groups which were particularly important during the online classes in the lockdown.
Whatsapp did me a huge favour by making public its revised data policy. As is speculated, Whatsapp users’ data was privy to FB as early as 2016. At least. But this latest revised policy that we encountered in late 2020 was more for its business use customers, with the payment options on Whatsapp being rolled out. The lashback was instant and people started talking about leaving Whatsapp. Whatsapp’s loss was Telegrams ( and Signal’s) gain.The initial date for consent to use the new policy was February which got postponed to May in the wake of the backlash. But I had made up my mind. It was now or never. I worked out mentally all the things I would miss. And I made peace with it. There would be problems but they could be circumvented. I decied to leave after the school academic session finishes at the end of March and before the new session opens in April. Irrespective of what happens with Whatsapp and its policies, I was done. I cited the revised policy as reasons for exiting groups.
Day 2, I am feeling fine. I had just shown the middle one to Mark Z.
