Bugs bunny relaxing and chewing on a carrot while blurting out a nonchalant 'what's up doc' fills up my memory screen when my phone chimes an incoming WhatsApp message. When Elmer Fudd the hunter pokes Bugs Bunny with a loaded double-barrel this nonchalant response was a game changer. There was no scurrying of rabbit-feet nor screams which would have been the expected response those days in a comic. Instead, the long-limbed rabbit lying in a very relaxed pose spits out a 'whats up doc?' from the corner of his mouth. Acton and Koum, when their journey from Yahoo to Facebook did not happen, decided to develop a social app and called it 'WhatsApp' a derivative of 'what's up'. And as they say, rest is history.
WhatsApp too has been a game changer. While Yahoo groups, Orkut and facebook have been instrumental in reviving old ties and friendships, Whatsapp brought about a paradigm shift in social communication. Of course, it has also brought along a new set of maladies.
Realisation hit me a couple of weeks ago that I am rushing in the morning to complete my chores, whereas I used to relax and enjoy my cuppa while flipping through the newspaper. And the culprit I could see was WhatsApp. Over the past year, I have been discovered by long lost friends and herded into groups - school groups, class groups, like-minded groups. For someone with the multiple lives spent in 9 schools, two colleges and six jobs, there is no dearth of groups for me.Wading through the messages in the morning was eating into my otherwise relaxed schedule. I am trying to collate here the experiences gathered at these various groups.
The work of the roosters has now been taken over by the roosters within your whatsapp groups. One can do away with wake-up alarms now as these new generation roosters are very punctual. Without missing a day they send out the morning greeting at the same time day after day. These greetings will also have some pearls of wisdom. These pearls of wisdom invariably are forwards which the sender might not have even read nor understood.
Members in a new group are like kids with a new toy. The first few days in a new group are worse than what probably happened at the tower of Babel. Everyone tries to have one-to-one conversations and there are few meaningful group conversations. Many egos bite the dust and the hurt ones take the exit route. School groups, especially if the re-connection is happening after a couple of decades or more, will start off with introductions and exchange of photographs and old stories. Once most of this is done, an awkward silence begins. The conversation graph goes south and the stale meaningless forwards become the only activity in the group. These groups do hit a peak now and then when a new member joins or when one of the member has an anniversary.
When one is a member of a multitude of groups,one is prone to certain occupational hazards. Some of the forwards get re-forwarded to the same group. My standard excuse in such instances is that the forward was so good that it deserved a re-forward.Generally such 'mistakes' go unnoticed as many members dont read all conversations. However there is also a breed of nit-pickers who take great pleasure in pointing out such oversights.
In a multi-linguistic country it is inevitable that some members send out forwards in minority languages. The linguistic champions then descend on such unfortunate victims like a tonne of bricks, admonishing them for the sacrilege committed.
Epic writers are another bane for the whatsapp community. Blog writers who send out their long-winded lectures in the forum do not realise that most of their stuff never gets read. The famous US Navy doctrine of KISS applies here too - Keep It Simple(short) Stupid.
The knights in shining armour are the modern day Don Quixotes. They strike at every windmill and take pride in slaying hoaxes. Unsubstantiated forwards and misleading 'authentic' information need to be nipped in the bud. The Hoax Slayers are a community I personally appreciate.
I wonder what happens with all this digital communication that is flying back and forth. The ease of use and the non-expensive nature has helped in the proliferation. There are huge servers dotting the universe which store and relay these messages. The energy used up by these machines to transmit trivia to and fro is adding to the carbon footprint. I have read somewhere, I am not in a position to verify this, that a typical year of incoming mail for a business user – including sending, filtering and reading – creates a carbon footprint of around 135kg. That's over 1% of of a relatively green 10-tonne lifestyle and equivalent to driving 200 miles in an average car. These calculations could be best guesses, but they are worth giving a thought to.
A simple 'hello' or even a 'whatsup doc' has now evolved into an addictive communication malady that influences our daily lives in more ways than we can think of.
The work of the roosters has now been taken over by the roosters within your whatsapp groups. One can do away with wake-up alarms now as these new generation roosters are very punctual. Without missing a day they send out the morning greeting at the same time day after day. These greetings will also have some pearls of wisdom. These pearls of wisdom invariably are forwards which the sender might not have even read nor understood.
Members in a new group are like kids with a new toy. The first few days in a new group are worse than what probably happened at the tower of Babel. Everyone tries to have one-to-one conversations and there are few meaningful group conversations. Many egos bite the dust and the hurt ones take the exit route. School groups, especially if the re-connection is happening after a couple of decades or more, will start off with introductions and exchange of photographs and old stories. Once most of this is done, an awkward silence begins. The conversation graph goes south and the stale meaningless forwards become the only activity in the group. These groups do hit a peak now and then when a new member joins or when one of the member has an anniversary.
When one is a member of a multitude of groups,one is prone to certain occupational hazards. Some of the forwards get re-forwarded to the same group. My standard excuse in such instances is that the forward was so good that it deserved a re-forward.Generally such 'mistakes' go unnoticed as many members dont read all conversations. However there is also a breed of nit-pickers who take great pleasure in pointing out such oversights.
In a multi-linguistic country it is inevitable that some members send out forwards in minority languages. The linguistic champions then descend on such unfortunate victims like a tonne of bricks, admonishing them for the sacrilege committed.
Epic writers are another bane for the whatsapp community. Blog writers who send out their long-winded lectures in the forum do not realise that most of their stuff never gets read. The famous US Navy doctrine of KISS applies here too - Keep It Simple(short) Stupid.
The knights in shining armour are the modern day Don Quixotes. They strike at every windmill and take pride in slaying hoaxes. Unsubstantiated forwards and misleading 'authentic' information need to be nipped in the bud. The Hoax Slayers are a community I personally appreciate.
I wonder what happens with all this digital communication that is flying back and forth. The ease of use and the non-expensive nature has helped in the proliferation. There are huge servers dotting the universe which store and relay these messages. The energy used up by these machines to transmit trivia to and fro is adding to the carbon footprint. I have read somewhere, I am not in a position to verify this, that a typical year of incoming mail for a business user – including sending, filtering and reading – creates a carbon footprint of around 135kg. That's over 1% of of a relatively green 10-tonne lifestyle and equivalent to driving 200 miles in an average car. These calculations could be best guesses, but they are worth giving a thought to.
A simple 'hello' or even a 'whatsup doc' has now evolved into an addictive communication malady that influences our daily lives in more ways than we can think of.
