The need for IMs

Published on Tuesday, April 30 2019 • less than a minute read

Note: No spoilers for Endgame in this post, for real. Read ahead. Dodging spoilers for anything is a continuous effort. Mainly because everything is so accessible these days. We're constantly surfing the InterWebs (well, social media, really) - Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, SnapChat, YouTube and the likes. Talking of spoilers, Avengers: Endgame released last week. I've been an MCU fan for a while now, mainly because of the connectedness of all the previous films. It is a must watch. Try to ignore the spoilers, but watch the entire series anyway. To avoid spoilers for this beast of a movie, I decided to leave Instagram and WhatsApp. Well, I'd already left Instagram before, for other reasons, so, WhatsApp was the IM I was using exclusively. Facebook toh bhool hi jaao. People rarely use it. So, let's get into it. The need for IMs, WhatsApp in this case, as that is probably one of the most popular ones, others being Hike I suppose. What do we use WhatsApp for? Let's break it down, no particular order here.

• Creating groups and annoying people in the process. (You can limit who adds you to a group now, by the way, just saying wink wink)
• Exchanging information quickly, talking about serious stuff, no fooling around.
• Casually talking, chilling. (The LOLs and hahas of your life)
• Exchanging photos. (You lose quality guys, use something like Google Photos)
• Exchanging memes. (Yep. It's cool as long as the frequency is less)
• Showcasing their life. Stories. (I assume SnapChat introduced this, and we have these everywhere now.)

So, I tried not to use WhatsApp for around two days. Well, I didn't uninstall it. You disable the Mobile Data for the app and stay on Mobile Data without connecting to a Wi-Fi to stay offline, internet will work in other places. Thank god. Realized you need internet for basically anything if you go dark for a while. And, the experience was excellent. No distractions. Felt like I had all the time in the world. I did miss talking to the few people I used to every once in a while though. Also, it is difficult to organize a PUBG team when one of them is just offline. Old-fashioned calls to the rescue. The experience is quite freeing indeed and I certainly recommend trying it. Even for a day. Going somewhere with friends would be perfect with this. Disconnect. Went to watch Endgame. Enjoyed it. Loved it. No screwing up this time.