WhatsDown

WhatsApp

I heard the tale of a young lady aged 17 and in high school. Her mother is a distraught woman after accidentally downloading a nude image of a young man; the age of her daughter on the social communication app, aptly named WhatsApp. It wouldn’t be such a bad scenario apart from the fact that they are neighbours with the aforementioned lad. See the two ‘love chicks’ (not yet birds) had a habit of staring away at their gadgets’ screens to no end each and every evening after a long day at school. It was revealed later after confrontations between their parents that amidst the giggles and wide-eyed stares, they’d actually been ‘trading nudes’ of each other.

This is an embarrassing scenario that one wouldn’t be too keen to have been part of but dear Reader, ever considered some etiquette when engaging in conversations through WhatsApp?

The developers of this amazing app that has literally sucked millions of us in its vortex-that guarantees ease of communication with minimal usage of data and across the entire planet probably never envisioned any of the unwritten violations that many of us carry out.

Reduce the spamming!

The most annoying thing, well for me that is, must be the persistently irritating, repeated, recycled, misinformed, ‘attention seeking’ and downright ignorant forwarded messages. For how long shalt I be warned that I risk a cancellation of my dear WhatsApp if I do not forward the same message to at least 36 of my contacts?! Or a common one: ‘My name is God….blah blah….. Send to 44 people and you will receive a surprise call after 17 hours, 4 minutes and 8 micro-seconds…’ Don’t get me wrong. Some of them are genuinely hilarious and can make one’s day more jovial. Importantly some offer great insights, inspiration and information but let’s rethink twice before sending such spam messages. The ability to send multi-media messages makes WhatsApp really efficient when words alone prove insufficient in relaying what we feel but this is abused too and that is downright wrong. It can be really offensive what image, audio or visual message you send. I’d be cool with a lot of stuff that many crazy friends of mine send but wisdom would help if applied again-before hitting ‘send’.

The concept of group chats is also invaluable but why (ladies mostly!) find it a great thing to start a conversation the rest of us don’t relate to just beatsthe whole idea of it being a group while messages in the dead of the night should be a no-no! ‘Amnesia…guys anyone ever seen a blue shooting star?’ Such a message awaking you at 3 a.m. ain’t such a brilliant idea. I’d include ‘WhatsApping’ us images of how delicious ones’ dinner looks but I won’t because it’s never too serious, right?

...last seen

Most of us normally have busy schedules and it’s not always possible to reply to WhatsApp messages prompt but why some of us start whining as they refer to you ‘last seen’ information just confuses me. Anyway, I’ve been guilty of that but we can collectively work on thatJ.

With a lot said, bottom line is we need to actually incorporate some common sense and etiquette even as we WhatsApp each other or it’ll pretty soon be WhatsDown.

STOP!