Deleting WhatsApp

Hi everyone!

I’ve just launched a blog about screen time called Screentimes.

The first two articles are about my recent experience deleting WhatsApp. It was such an interesting, difficult process, which I’d love to start a discussion around. Here are my articles, with a summary:

  1. How to delete WhatsApp, beyond the obvious part

Summary: I found it insanely hard to delete WhatsApp for all sorts of reasons, so this is my attempt at creating a guide through. For me, it turned out that the emotional/people part of deleting WhatsApp (saying goodbye to people you communicate with mostly through it) was hardest. Second hardest was the process of holding onto my WhatsApp message history, which is really, really difficult if you have a large history.

  1. Why I deleted WhatsApp

Summary: after deleting WhatsApp, lots of people questioned why. This was my attempt to clearly write out why I made this decision. I didn’t realise that writing out my justification would be such an important part of the process.

Has anyone else deleted WhatsApp and gone through something similar?

Louis

P.S. If you’re interested in writing a piece for Screentimes, let me know.

8 Likes

I have also found it hard to delete my WhatsApp and Facebook knowing full well that they have not added to my life in any substantial way. I need to do this… Thanks for the inspiration!

Hi @louisbarclay!

First, I want to thank you for opening up and sharing your experience and feelings with us.

Secondly, I want to say that I respect your decision of deleting WhatsApp, and if this makes you happier, there’s no questioning that this was indeed the right decision for you to make.

Last but not least, I want to say that if you eventually feel that you miss WhatsApp, maybe I can help you find another way around this, so just shoot me a private message. And I won’t charge you, so don’t worry.

And keep up with your blog, I’m looking forward to your next posts!

I did the same 2 weeks ago. I actually went the extra mile and deleted all social media alltogether, with no alternative way of communicating except emails, sms and calls.
The weird part is people acted shocked and were treating me as if I was announcing my death.

This impacted my job aswell, my solution was to migrate to a job phone with whatever apps they use, that phone also stays there when I get back home.

I know my methods seem almost medieval, but talking from experience, if I go back and reinstall the “least harmful” app, Twitter, over time I get hooked up again. And it follows a cascade effect of reinstalling Facebook, Whatsapp and everything else.

On the surface it all seems trivial, but its really not. If we grew up without all of this and in our adult life with some level of maturity got hooked up, picture your children. Also all of the igeners and whatever comes next will be our main workforce, how will our society be shaped?
Obsessing over this made me start to study human behavior, psychology, biology, philosophy… and that’s how I got here. I’ve read your posts and I’m really interested in this subject, I’ll be checking around!

~ Luis

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My family just got a Light Phone II with its own number. This will be the phone that we take to run errands, go for walks, use on weekends. Will let you know how it goes.

A really nice substitute to Whatsapp is email. People usually have an email app on their phones, and so it’s pretty ideal for group messages and photos. Just look out for that 25 GB limit per message.

Good job, welcome to the free world of ex WhatsApp users!

Hi I am very interested on writing a piece on Screentimes, if you want another POV on why I deleted all of my social media (but LinkedIN). Its cool to see I am not the only one who didn’t find having Whatsapp normal, and have been questioned why I deleted it too many times.

Great decision. I planned to do it for the last years before they had no Webinterface. But I communicate with a lot family members and friends there and they won’t switch to another service for me or use email.
Even I deactivated the notifications and set a time limit I found myself using this app way too much. Now I found a great solution for me. I installed WhatsApp on an old phone and now use it with a client on my MacBook together with the other chat apps that are needed for work. I have a fixed daily time where I check my mails, messages and now also WhatsApp. I hope that in this way my contacts recognize that I only answer once a day and don’t be available for chatting. :slight_smile:

1 Like

I’ve deleted all of my social media as well, except LinkedIn as well, but I’m thinking of getting rid of it as well. LinkedIn isn’t supposed to be social media. It’s just for saying “I exist, this isn’t a stolen identity or anything, and yeah, my resume isn’t 100% bullsh#t.” IMO doing anything “social” on there is badly misusing it.