Go ahead I’m not writing about this purpose of disable whatsapp notifications by 2023 which barely has a few weeks to live, if not a goal I ran in 2022, fed up with the over-connectivity and the difficulty it causes when concentrating. Yes, your mobile is a console, a camera, a TV, a computer and it is used for calling, but it is also the device that has managed to keep us hooked on consuming content and ultimately wasting time .
Social networks are designed for you to spend time on them, but WhatsApp is loaded by the devil: group jokes, dramas told through audios that work like episodic podcasts, killing boredom. So in 2022 I reduced my losses: I deactivated WhatsApp notifications and I become happy.
WhatsApp is essential
It’s neither new nor your discovery of the year, but WhatsApp is (almost) essential to communicate: you use it with your friends and your family, but also in school groups or to communicate with the plumber or the hairdresser.
Yes, there are alternatives to WhatsApp as reliable as Telegram (if you ask me, much better than the Meta app), but the big problem is always the same: let everyone use it. Over the years I got convince part of my environment to make the jump to Telegram, but there will always be people like my parents for whom this change would mean a learning curve that is not worth it. It is also not possible to resort to SMS, which cost money and are more limited.
Well you still got the calls. Although under certain premises they may be interchangeable, the calls and whatsapp they bring and require different elements in a conversation: a call requires that you be available at a certain time and that your attention is at its maximum. It also contains information at close range and decision making. With a messaging app, you can read, deliver, return, and reply. What do you need to look back? In a call (without recording) you have to extract the distorted memories, while in WhatsApp you have word for word what the other person said. If we add the audios, with a WhatsApp you even have the advantage of spoken language, with its pauses and tones.
As a consequence, they are used for different conversations: It’s 3 a.m. and your grandmother has fallen very ill? Have you met someone in a crowded place and you can’t see them? Not sure if you should add salt to the txuletón before or after cooking and you already have a griddle? Call, fool.
If the idea is for your friend to tell you how their date went, or if you’re extremely bored on a train trip and want the rest of the car to know by making a call, or the usual thing is that you use WhatsApp. My hairdresser even has a funny way of using it: if you’re late for your appointment, she’ll call you. But if he managed to finish the previous meeting before and wants you to come a little earlier, he sends you a message. Understand that in the second case it is an option and that a call would obligate you, with all the logic in the world, since you have probably settled your schedule and done something else first. If not, then you come close and you both win. The question is how to prioritize the messages and their degree of urgency.
A matter of priorities
Nevertheless, deleting whatsapp wasn’t an option either. The alternative was to disable WhatsApp notifications. If WhatsApp is not used for urgent things, in theory it shouldn’t be a big loss not to receive notifications when someone writes to me. Sooner or later I will enter WhatsApp to see what is going on.
What did I gain and what did I lose by disabling notifications? I already work silently on my mobile, so it disturbs me while I write, but it can be an interruption while I do other tasks. Knowing that I already have the sound alerts from social networks and e-mails, at the moment only calls and telegrams “disturb” me. I gain peace of mind and look at my phone less.
… but from time to time I go to WhatsApp and discover this message from the hairdresser to anticipate the appointment I could have arrived at, opinions from my paddle tennis group about a possible loss that I could have covered myself or someone tell me that if I want to have a drink, that he has free time. Missed appointments and opportunities to be late. I didn’t feel bad about it: in any case there was always the resource of the call.
It’s time to take stock, is it worth it? In my case, absolutely yes: in 2023, my WhatsApp notifications are still disabled.
Picture | Photo montage by Kristina Flour via Unsplash and BossFunkeHarry via Wikimedia
