You've got messages

You've got messages

He staggered into the doctor’s clinic. His clothes were wrinkled, his hair was uncombed and his eyes had that glazed lost look of someone who was about to be put in straitjackets and packed off to the mental asylum. He slumped into the patient’s chair and whispered in urgent tones “My smart phone has been taken over by the devil! I wake up in the middle of the night with the intention of relieving my bladder but instead stare at my phone screen. I can’t get back to sleep. Whether my phone is in silent mode or not, I am compelled to see every message, every video and every picture. I wake up in the morning and the first thing I do is reach for my phone!” He leaned forward on his chair and clutched at the doc’s collar “Doctor … help me … I am addicted to WhatsApp!”

They have you surrounded

Sounds scary? Well it should be. As of February 2016 this popular app has garnered 1 billion users throughout the world. In India it is estimated that more than 80 million use WhatsApp and that is growing every week. From accountants to architects, from grocers to government officials, from tailors to teachers and from students to salesmen; everyone is furiously sharing pictures, videos and messages, chuckling at jokes and furtively peering at dubious pictures. It is ubiquitous. And it should be because it is such an amazing App. You take a pic; tap “share”, select share using WhatsApp and hit “send”. In a sec you hear that satisfying “tuk” sound and viola, your message is gone to the recipient or recipients. Anyone could fall in love with this wonderful App but there is a downside.

Of broadcasts and groups

You can message a friend one-to-one or to a number of people all at once. Suppose you fancy yourself as a sage and want to reach out to all your disciples at the same time, there are two ways you can do this. You can create a “broadcast” list or make a “group”. In a broadcast you can send out a message or a picture to several disciples all at once and the receivers won’t be able to see who else you have sent it to. It will appear personal, like BCC in an email. If the aforementioned disciple messages you back saying how terrible your last sermon was no one else will be able to see it thereby saving your reputation. On the other hand groups are meant for everyone to communicate with each other. It works fine for a small number of participants but if you have many people in the group, especially those who have just entered the world of messaging and find it an exciting novelty, you are in big trouble. Here is why.

Bad good mornings

There are few members of the group who will always be under the delusion that everyone else in the group is waiting for them to send a greeting first thing in the morning. They will insist on inflicting themselves upon the group every morning with a cheery “good morning” message. This is no ordinary “good morning” message; it comes burdened with a dozen pictures. There is a mistaken impression that by forwarding a profound message everyone will expect the sender to be intelligent. As if sending the message to you was not enough, they will appeal to you to share this message with everyone else! Out of politeness a few members will respond with thumbs-up or clapping icons, big mistake because this will trigger off other messengers who also crave to be recognised.

Pass it on

If you have been a WhatsApp user for some time you may already have received tons of jokes, dire health alerts, theft warnings, advice on finance, million photos and videos. Not once, but again and again from hazar different contacts. There are heart-warming stories generally to do with children, soldiers and hospitals, most are written up in the west and adapted to an Indian background. Popular are those religious messages with a warning saying “if you pass this message to 10 people you will make gobs of money in a week but if you do not you will get a massive heart attack and die a horrible death all alone”. The gullible who want to save themselves, their friends and family from such a horrible death will rush the message off to 10 contacts and around 50% of those contacts will each send it off to 10 more and soon the message is circling the globe like an incurable virus.

Hoax messages galore

There is no scientific study about this, but while people from all over the world fall for hoax messages, we Indians, due to our cultural immersion in myths, legends and folklores are especially conditioned to being taken in by the atrocious rubbish that is circulated on the net. Some recent hoaxes are three headed Cobras seen, trees with natural carvings of animals in Nalgonda, AIDS effected worker putting tainted blood into Maaza containers, that WhatsApp will become a paid service from Monday unless you forward the message to 10 others, NASA’s Diwali night image of India, image of Mercury, Venus and Saturn in perfect alignment over the pyramids that happens once in 2,737 years, that UNESCO has named the Indian National Anthem the best in the world, that Narendra Modi is giving away free mobile recharges, Amazon is giving away free unsealed TVs and so on.

Your phone is occupied

Those who have been around in cyberspace a long time generally recognize a hoax when they see it. Most vulnerable are those who have been introduced to the wonders of the internet only recently. Most do not pause to read and assess the messages with their common sense filter. Understandably they want to be helpful and send off the message to others as soon as possible thereby being the first to propagate such nonsense. Most of these messages are repeats and some have been around in various forms for years. Unfortunately with most messages arriving with images they bloat up and occupy your device or SD card memories.

What is the solution?

Best way is never join a group of many people. If you have already done so, you can bail out immediately by leaving the group. But hidden in all the rubbish may be an important message or two. You could put aside an hour every day to delete unwanted images and videos. But the easy solution is to click on the three dots menu on top right of the WhatsApp screen, go to “settings”, then to “chats and calls”, then to “chat history” and to “Clear all chats”. You will then see three options. Select one of them and lo and behold you would have regained lost storage space. Habitual forwarders, before forwarding anything use some common sense and discretion. To know if a message is a hoax just type in the key words into Google and ask if it is a hoax.  These actions can help us all avoid being locked up in the neighborhood mental asylum.