Er... WhatsApp Doc?

Er.. What's app Doc?

Okay – I'll come right out with it - I hate WhatsApp! I'm tempted to follow this up by saying that I also hate smart phones in general but that would be very far from the truth. In fact I think smart phones are remarkable pieces of technology. Just look at what they can do. They can take photos and film videos, pin point your location and plan a route to somewhere else. They can give you online access to more information that anybody will ever need They can schedule your appointments, scan your shopping and wake you up. You can do your banking with them, plan and book your holidays, watch films and play games. You can even use them to make telephone calls! They make the communicators used by the crew of Starship Enterprise in the Star Trek films and TV series look quite basic. No, I'm not a modern day Luddite.. What? You don't know what a Luddite is?... well –  just Google it on your smart phone … In fact I admire most inventions even if I don't embrace them all. However they do all have one important and the same drawback, namely that human beings are allowed to use them! And that's where it all goes wrong.

Despite all the obvious advantages of global mobile communication and all the amazing features of these pocket sized technological wonders they seem mostly to be used for playing games, exchanging lunch photos or resolving petty arguments in cafés and pubs. We used to sit around drinking with friends while discussing a whole range of topics, as the evening wore on the subjects would become both more trivial and more heated. But - at closing time each of us would go home happy in the knowledge that we had been right. Now someone is bound to spoil the fun by checking the facts on their phone proving at least some of us wrong while at the same time bringing the conversation, that may well have entertained us the whole evening,  to an abrupt end.

Of course, in developing countries where the infrastructure was poor, mobile telephones have vastly improved communication and they have certainly saved people from death and danger. However, when I hear customers in the supermarket calling home to ask whether they should buy milk or plain chocolate cookies I sometimes wonder if all the time, effort ,research, development and ingenuity was really worth it!

So- what's up with WhatApp then? Well, here again it's not a question of me not moving with the times. I have a Facebook account, a Twitter account, LinkedIn and a few other accounts besides and I spend quite a lot of time using them. The point is, though, I don't carry them around with me. I read and post articles, photos, cartoons, columns or chat,  in private without disturbing other people. And that's the problem with WhatsApp (and Messenger), besides giving my partner yet another reason not to listen to me, it is overall, everywhere and, more often than not, intrusive. It's great that we can have free, easy and immediate contact with people all over the world but that doesn't mean we have to do it all the time!  Frequently, in company, some of the gathering will have a least half an eye on their screen, while others will be openly reading or answering messages. WhatsApp is addictive. If proof was needed I found it last summer half way up the Caucasus mountains. Lunch had been arranged in a small restaurant that was officially not yet open, there was a beautiful view, a friendly greeting, the table was already laid and full of delicious looking food BUT there was also Wifi...within seconds every member of the group, the driver, the guide, the guides wife, the assistant guides and all the mountain bikers were checking to see how many messages they had missed during the previous two hours driving or cycling! I was surprised, annoyed, embarrassed, and a little sad. Well, okay, to be honest, I was mostly very hungry and eager to get on with the eating part but you get the picture.

I have a computer, a lap-top and a tablet and as I have already mentioned I use quite a range of social media nonetheless it was a long time before we bought our first computer, not because of any resistance to modernity, technological advance or change, quite the reverse in fact.
I predicted that once I had a computer a disproportionate amount of my day would be spent sitting in front of a screen. And that is exactly what happend, that's what I do, for work and play, for pleasure and education, for social contacts and self promotion and sometimes just to pass the time. So now you have a clue to the real reason that I still have a very-far-from-smart-phone and no WhatsApp. You can forget everything I have written above – the plain truth is I'm afraid that when I do get a smartphone, and that is inevitable, I will be at least as bad as everybody else and maybe a bit worse than some!