The impact of WhatsApp

Before the year 2011 or 2012, texting was how we used to stay in touch with most of our friends. Remember how we used to run behind the free SMS packs? And then out of the blue, there came a rule saying that we couldn’t send more than 200 messages per day. For some of us, it was like a bombshell. It clipped our wings; how could we ever stay in touch with all of our friends again? Little did we know that one particular app was going to make such a huge impact that it would revolutionize the way we communicated with our near and dear ones.

More and more people gradually began to talk about WhatsApp, a new app meant for sending unlimited messages over the internet. It sounded attractive – one could send images for free too (remember the high costs we had to pay for MMS, just for one photo?) And the best part – it was free for the first year! SMS packs slowly started giving way to data packs; also, the fact that broadband internet and Wi-Fi were spreading rapidly in India at that stage only served to accelerate the success of WhatsApp.

The impact that WhatsApp has on our lives now is astounding. It’s practically the first thing we check after waking up and the last thing we do before closing our eyes at night. Sharing dozens of images – which was a real headache not more than just four years ago – has turned into a breeze now. Our friendships are now determined by whether the other person has WhatsApp or not. Not just images, even sharing videos has become so easy! Indeed, it was starting to encroach upon Facebook’s space so much that Mark Zuckerberg pulled a masterstroke – he decided to buy WhatsApp and make it his own.

With an active user base of over a billion now – which means approximately one out of every seven persons in the world now is on WhatsApp, it has carved a niche for itself. People don’t just say “send me this”, they say “whatsapp it to me”. It’s the first app we download whenever we buy a new phone. Not just the youngsters, people of all generations have taken to WhatsApp with ease. My WhatsApp contact list also includes my 12 year-old cousin sister and my 90 year-old grandfather! Such has been its impact. The groups on WhatsApp keep buzzing all day with new tidbits from someone or the other – it helps us to stay tuned with a lot of happenings from college, the workplace, within the family and even across the world. Though it is said that technology separates us farther apart, things like these have brought long-lost friends in contact and definitely helped us come closer to each other. The fine line that WhatsApp has between enriching our lives and distracting us from our work is one that has to be carefully trodden, and its impact, if channelized well, is definitely a boon to us.

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.