I ought to confess before I plough in to my main topic for today. In a follow up to my previous blog, I should admit a terrible relapse. After a mere two weeks of using the older smart phone I was unable to continue. I am back to using the crash damaged S3. I will not bother you with excuses or justifications. I would rather use a broken S3 than a pristine S2. I’m not even sorry.
Today I have been thinking about WhatsApp, which is my preferred instant messaging service. I really like the way WhatsApp works, I find it more enjoyable aesthetically than other messenger apps I have used, it neatly reveals all the contacts of yours who already utilize the app and does not pressure you to invite your friends to download it if they do not have it. It is a great way to share photos quickly and it has become habitual for me to have three or four WhatsApp conversations in the go during the course of a day.
As of 05/11/14 WhatsApp introduced the message read notification: https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/20951546. I have been using WhatsApp happily for quite some time now and I actually enjoyed the fact that this was the one app where you did not have to worry about the whole message read notification saga. I am frankly disappointed that WhatsApp have decided to change this feature, and I for one will be disabling it post haste.
I remember when read message notifications first became a thing, and I remember contemplating the damage that might do to the emotionally insecure. We have all been through the crushing ecstasy and exquisite despair that accompanies our first passionate love affair. I think most of us have also experienced the dramas of unrequited love, and the attempts and hopes related to convincing oneself, through excessive analysis of every minutiae of communication, that the target of our affection feels the same way about us, usually with a lot of help from our encouraging friends. And when faced with a textual message which has not been replied to it is sensible to remind yourself that the person might be busy and not had time to reply to your flirtatious advances, they will probably get back to you later. They might never reply to you, and you might realise that you were mistaken in assuming mutual affections, but you will still have that remaining spark of hope that they will text you tomorrow. Since the read message notification barged its way in to our lives, that wisp of hope has been destroyed: extinguished like a spent candle.
I think this is potentially damaging to our youth. We experience our most passionate and agonising feelings during our adolescence. We fumble our way through intense relationships with no real clue of what we are actually striving towards, and feelings get hurt everyday. I wonder why do we insist on creating technology to make our lives that bit more unbearable?
The flip side of this is that now if you receive a WhatsApp message from someone, and you perhaps only have the time to glance over the message and not reply, you either have to not open the full message to ensure that you do not notify them that you have read it, or risk causing catastrophic heart ache for the other person who now thinks you are deliberately ignoring them. Yet another layer of toxic game playing has entered our lives.
Perhaps I am being overly unfair about this small detail: it can after all be disabled. But as someone who has always been a great supporter of social media I do feel as if a darker cloud is covering my internet usage these days, and I would urge everyone to be mindful of their social networking behaviours. I do not think it should be underestimated either the impact all of this is having on the generation who do not recognise the world without social media.
Nurse Vendetta 