Refusing to Use WhatsApp for this reason

[dottypotter]

Someone in the family refuses to use WhatsApp and be in the family group as they don't believe it's private and safe.
I have never heard anyone give this as a reason has anyone else

We now have to text them separately etc cos they won't use it.

It's so useful to all be on the same group. Just never heard it as a reason before.

Not true, I've been on skype with someone I've whatsapped earlier in the day and the ticks are there my side but they didn't even receive the message yet until they opened the app cos I said something about said message that they didn't know they had! It's all lies

We have someone on.our group for an activity that keeps sending memes which are boring now.

I don't know who it is as they don't have a pic. I did however mention it on group about it being boring and got told I had no sense of humour.

I have and don't mind the odd one but continually posting them bores me. You can't remove one person from a group either unless you started it.

I don't think this is a "who cares about my data I'm boring" thing, there are bigger issues at play, and where society is heading towards. We are constantly connected all the time to companies who are watching our every move and data, and using it for their own gain. Our data. For their gain. Our data is training algorithms that are used to influence our choices, trivial and political, with societal engineering at scale. Everything you write, while you write it, delete it, how long you scroll, where you stop momentarily to look at an add, when do you log in, from where. EVERY single thing you do online is tracked. I do come from a place of knowledge when saying this. So it is ok for people to take a stand to it. You might think it is inconvenient or boring to be so, but everyone is entitled to what they think. Just give Beryl a call and say the time and date, then he has a choice. It is the nice thing to do. He isn't trying to make you upset, he is upset at the matrix.

Yep - my Mum

She also will not use Facebook or Insta for the same reason, and is massively protective over software on her PC - doesn't trust Microsoft

We try and tell her as much as possible but inevitably miss the odd thing

Would be sooooo much easier if she would join the family updates chat!

I don't like using FB or WhatsApp. I'll lurk on the community FB page but not much else. Let alone Instagram.

I'm not missing out.

If I want a tea and sticky bun, I'll text.

If I want to catch up with family , or they want to catch up with us, we'll phone.
It's so much nicer to hear a voice, and all its nuances. A proper conversation.
You can't get that with a screen of words.

So many times a meaning has been lost or mistaken with just a screen of words.

'That's lovely' can sound dour, sarcastic, patronising, passive aggressive , ecstatic, or just plain lovely.

You can't see that on the screen and, judging by the countless MN posts about what someone means , on a screen, it seems daft to just rely on typing words to people.

What is wrong with a telephone conversation?

My Dad has WhatsApp but never responds to anything using it. So I send him a question (eg what plant is this? or can I please borrow your wallpaper stripper?) and I can see that he's seen it but he'll call me 3 days later with a response. He's the same with texts. Infuriating. I do call him as well but for a quick easy question it's perfect. I send him pictures of the DC doing stuff at school or whatever and still no response. He should just delete the app.

I fucking love WhatsApp. The backup feature and the fact that I can email years worth of convos to myself to prove that my ex was a gaslighting cunt is just great. He was always weird about messaging sensitive info (eg please can you send me the Amazon password) via WhatsApp as he never trusted it was secure. He’d send 3 characters via WhatsApp and the rest via a different platform.

"What is wrong with a telephone conversation?"

You can only call one person at a time (unless doing a Whatsapp group call!)

What is wrong with a telephone conversation?

its not always convenient to call, maybe at work in the tea room or at the hairdressers and sending a message is less intrusive and allows people to reply at their own pace and time

I don't want or need to call (or text) more than one person at a time, so not using whatsapp suits me fine and I don't use anything else owned by Facebook/Meta either - never have.

I have unlimited free texts with my phone contract though, so I can't see any particular advantage even without the data harvesting aspect.

"I don't want or need to call (or text) more than one person at a time"

How do you organise a night out or a party or anything with more than one other person. If it's one person at a time, it can take forever.

This usually happens when the person needs to update their app to the latest version or they have full phone memory.

I know a lot of these responses are lighthearted but seriously, it's not fair to pressurise someone to use something they are not comfortable with. Personally I have never been on WhatsApp in my life and know nothing about it. I don't even own a smart phone. If people don't like it, tough. It's my life.

The situation's never arisen - I have a small number of close friends (none of whom know each other) and my partner, so we make our arrangements one to one. I've never enjoyed being part of a group and if I'm going to a party/gig/club I'll go by myself and see who's there when I arrive.

If anybody else wants to contact me they can text me, and if they choose not to then it obviously wasn't that important

i love whatsapp and have many groups but i refuse to be on the family one. i hate my husbands family!!

No, you can make group calls. You have been able to do that on land lines before the internet even existed!

How?
As I've been using landline for about 50 years, and, whereas I am not questioning your knowledge, I am just saying it is not something I have ever come across as an option for me to have.

We can go round and round in circles about the reasons why WhatsApp is disliked by some people or not trusted by some people or accepted as being really really useful tool by other people and loved by some other people but the point is similar to people who choose not to drive.
100% their right to choose not to drive. None of anyone else's business unless they then ask you to give them lifts all the time.
Same principle - no problem with people choosing not to use a tool that is convenient for all others in whatever group it is unless they then complain about not knowing about the things that the group has been set up to discuss.
I suspect none of us mind calling Great Granny to let her know the arrangements for that big family meal once it has been arranged, but that is very different from Bob from the hockey team wanting the manager to let him know the arrangements for the matches separately because he refuses to partake in the club's usual way of communicating, and still moaning because he hadn't heard that someone suggested a different route from last year as there are roadworks on the main A road at the moment.

It's fully encrypted

As a previous poster has sensibly pointed out, families have been organising days out for centuries without all this technology. And just because you buy Great Aunt Beryl/Doris a smart phone, you can't make her use it. Especially not fancy Apps. Beryl has survived her whole life quite happily without WhatsApp so why should she start now at the age of 93?

Glad to read on her that I am not the only one without a smartphone.

I started using WhatsApp because I liked the ethos of the founders, the lack of advertising etc. I don’t do insta or Facebook so was disappointed when they acquired WhatsApp. I’d happily jump to signal but am on so many different groups I don’t want two running alongside.

Er, good luck with trying that now. Party lines were phased out in the 80s.

The intractability of some posters on here is pretty eyebrow-raising.

They genuinely think they're too Busy and Important to possibly entertain that someone might not know how or want to use a particular technology and seem personally affronted that an elderly relative might prefer a phone call.

They're literally outraged that the world isn't dancing to their tune and would quite happily not invite a presumably much-loved relative to a family event simply because they don't have a smartphone. Are people really that wrapped up in themselves? Crazy.

orwellwasright

Absolutely agree. Although ashamed to say I don't know what "intracability" means. I think most people posting on here must be about 22.

Beryl

I don't think that's what people are saying at all @orwellwasright

I have LOADS of WhatsApp Groups on my phone and find them incredibly useful to arrange all sorts of things which is SO much easier than life 10 years ago.

Alongside that, I am also very happy to phone my elderly Aunty Joan for our fortnightly chats and conversations, that is a completely different thing.

But if I am trying to find a date to get together for a meal with my adult dc and their partners (all of whom work on different time scales / live in different homes), WhatsApp is the way forward for us. If one of those people chooses not to be involved, that's fine, they get a message afterwards saying "We're going to the nags head on 12th, let us know if you want to join us". So still invited, but once it is a fait accompli, whereas everyone else can input into the choice of date / venue / time as they are in the conversation.