For many months after some helpful soul installed whatsapp on my phone (a year or so ago) I did not know what to do with it. It kept making odd sounds and messages and images flowed into my phone at a pace faster than I could handle. Groups added me without my permission and soon I was part of a number of groups I did not know from Adam or Aditya (our Indian version of Adam) and was hearing intimate details emanating from the participants. It was like being part of a large household with its nice people, bad people, fake people, genuine people, the perverts and the mischief makers. I did what I normally do - watch and wait for things to unfold instead of provoking any reaction. Long conversations happened between some twenty odd people in a group of some 100 people.
Over time I gathered enough courage to send a few messages of my own, change my profile picture, look at others profile pictures, download stuff and watch crazy videos and pictures sent by the group, wonder at how they all had these good mornings and stuff. Some sent songs, some sent greetings. Some specialised only in sending the sexy stuff and some others only specialised in sending macabre stuff.
Our school group was the worst. I am in a state of nervous breakdown now thanks to it. Suddenly a picture or a video pops up - man caught in air plane turbine or man being stabbed or horrid traffic accidents - stuff that makes you shiver at night. I got rid of that group by silencing it for a year and deleting messages as fast as they came. I was not sure if I should exit these groups directly or find some other subtler way to escape these perversions. It was sheer torture.
Thankfully my whatsapp decided enough was enough the other day. One day it asked me to update it. It asked for some password. I entered all the passwords I knew and it rejected them all. I was shut out of this world forever. I uninstalled it. Tried to install it again. It again asked me for that password I did not know again.
I am done with it. I look back and wonder if it did me any good. Cannot think of much save a couple of cute pics Anjali sent me with lots of love symbols etc. I think of what it did to me - the mental trauma of seeing all these gory pictures and videos, seeing fake greetings and wishes, reading the worst kind of jokes (the ratio of bad jokes to good would be 99:1), watching all sorts of pictures from reunions and stuff, seeing morphed pictures, getting unsubstantiated rumours, looking at the posh lives of some of our regular idiots. It was and continues to be stressful mind you.
Hopefully the effects of whatsapp will wear of in a while. I also hope whatsapp will forever ask me that one password I do not know - and that should be one good way to keep me out of that trap again. Life is peaceful now. No complaints.
Over time I gathered enough courage to send a few messages of my own, change my profile picture, look at others profile pictures, download stuff and watch crazy videos and pictures sent by the group, wonder at how they all had these good mornings and stuff. Some sent songs, some sent greetings. Some specialised only in sending the sexy stuff and some others only specialised in sending macabre stuff.
Our school group was the worst. I am in a state of nervous breakdown now thanks to it. Suddenly a picture or a video pops up - man caught in air plane turbine or man being stabbed or horrid traffic accidents - stuff that makes you shiver at night. I got rid of that group by silencing it for a year and deleting messages as fast as they came. I was not sure if I should exit these groups directly or find some other subtler way to escape these perversions. It was sheer torture.
Thankfully my whatsapp decided enough was enough the other day. One day it asked me to update it. It asked for some password. I entered all the passwords I knew and it rejected them all. I was shut out of this world forever. I uninstalled it. Tried to install it again. It again asked me for that password I did not know again.
I am done with it. I look back and wonder if it did me any good. Cannot think of much save a couple of cute pics Anjali sent me with lots of love symbols etc. I think of what it did to me - the mental trauma of seeing all these gory pictures and videos, seeing fake greetings and wishes, reading the worst kind of jokes (the ratio of bad jokes to good would be 99:1), watching all sorts of pictures from reunions and stuff, seeing morphed pictures, getting unsubstantiated rumours, looking at the posh lives of some of our regular idiots. It was and continues to be stressful mind you.
Hopefully the effects of whatsapp will wear of in a while. I also hope whatsapp will forever ask me that one password I do not know - and that should be one good way to keep me out of that trap again. Life is peaceful now. No complaints.
2 comments:
I was once in grave danger of being Whatsapped, but then I changed my job, and now I don't have the net on my phone..a relief indeed. It was torture while it lasted, though..
I like the term 'Whatsapped'. It rhymes with zapped, snapped, trapped. Celebrate, celebrate, celebrate!!
I also realise that people give away far more information about themselves on Whatsapp than they think they are giving away - by way of profile pics or profile status messages etc. The info I got by merely looking into the Whatsapp directory is amazing. (I even know how the courier guys family looks like!)
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