Othman Adel Al -Abbasi
As soon as I opened my eyes in the morning and I am still thinking about the meaning of life and the goal of my presence on this gentle blue planet, the armies of the successive notifications of my smart phone raided me. “So and so added to the group of the children’s school,” “Alan added you to the collection of accounts department”, “You were added to the group of new neighbors.” Oh, my God! What is all this sudden human cohesion? When does WhatsApp become a bridge for social development that I have never requested?
I tried to ignore it, as this is not new to us, but modern technology always insists on inventing new ways to storm my life calmly and intimately. I open my phone to discover 378 messages in the school group, all of which revolve around a very complex philosophical discussion: “Do we send children tomorrow in the uniform of sports or in the normal uniform?” I do not understand why this simple phrase took eight hours and 378 messages to reach the genius decision: “Every one is at its comfort!”
At work, the situation is similar. My dear manager, who seems to have not heard of the invention of his name “Email”, insists on giving us official instructions through voice messages in WhatsApp. The problem is that his messages do not end until after telling the story of his life, and concludes with his usual saying: “If you understand, call me.” And if I call him, he responds with an urgent text message: “Now is busy, write to me on WhatsApp!”
This beautiful green application has become wondrous. If you don’t have WhatsApp today, you literally live outside the planet. The school does not report important events except in WhatsApp, mail services connect the parcels using WhatsApp, and if you lose your cat, you will have to join the “Verg missing” group, otherwise no one will feel the loss of your dear cat.
But what makes me actually stop in the middle of the day to contemplate the meaning of life is the strange insistence of institutions to use this application specifically. WhatsApp is not a government application, nor is it affiliated with an official body, but rather it is not Bahraini! Why do some insist that those who owns WhatsApp are a good citizen, and who does not own it out of the law? Have I missed a prerequisite that makes WhatsApp mandatory to practice daily life?!
It is worse that some of the major institutions, from which we expected to keep their secrets in a tight steel box, send their sensitive data with confidence through this beautiful application, which is owned by a foreign company, may decide tomorrow, to publish our Facebook talks! Imagine that you receive sensitive information while I was in the cafe or in the grocery store, between notifying store discounts and friends’ groups. It may seem funny now, but it may easily turn into a digital disaster, which makes us repeat in astonishment: “But we were sure that WhatsApp was safe!”
It is funny that this technical chaos is its goal – as they claim – make our lives “simpler and easier”. But the reality says something completely different; We have been living in endless notifications, and services that depend exclusively on a foreign application that earns millions of dollars behind this digital mania.
At the end of the day, while I finally lie down in my bed and close my eyes to rest, my phone is finally notified by WhatsApp: “You were added to the group of lovers of calm and relaxation.” I smile sarcastically, and I pray to God to bless me with some of this calm. I do not invite you to get rid of WhatsApp, it is not the problem, but perhaps we have to think about the limits of our use of it, before he thinks about the limits of our lives!
* Technical expert
