Today I was considering joining someone’s Whatsapp Running Community until I heard the phrase “I am the only one that can write messages and I let people answer polls”. For me, as a netizen of the 90s web, this is a red flag. It is a red flag because if all you want to do is see if people want to participate then you have events on Strava, Meetup.com and other sites and apps....
Posts tagged “whatsapp”
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On Extroverts and the Stifled Online Conversation — Apr 27, 2026 -
On Quitting Whatsapp Chatrooms — Mar 28, 2026When I worked as a deicer I was working such unsociable hours that my personal life took a hit. Friends would often discuss going to climb at 19:00 or so but I couldn’t. I had to be up at 02:00 to be at work by 04:00 ready to deice planes. After a while of feeling isolated I quit that chat, to preserve my mental health....
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Playing Wordle — Jan 18, 2022I saw the little boxes, and then I saw that the New York Times had an article on the distraction so I read about it. It’s a game some people were playing via whatsapp during the lockdown, spread to friends, and then it spread wider and wider. Boiled down Wordle is hangman for people who no longer feel comfortable with capital punishment even in game form.... -
The Declining Case for Social Media Giants — Mar 2, 2026Years ago I was interviewed by the RTS to speak about Twitter and my conclusion is that it would never pick up in Switzerland because there are too few users and they’re too dispersed. That is still true.... -
On WhatsApp and Netiquette — Dec 11, 2025I was thinking of taking a break from Whatsapp for three weeks. I have this desire, and need because I am tired of how people use Whatsapp. They create groups, where strangers are added. People with no deep knowledge of online communities delete posts that are sometimes not spam. Other people complain when people try to have conversations. The result is that WhatsApp is emotionally draining because it doesn’t feel like a healthy, tight knit community.... -
Thoughts on WhatsApp and GoSocial — Jun 3, 2025Before Whatsapp was bought by Facebook it was a great platform for people to chat with family and friends. When Facebook bought Whatsapp, many people, including myself, migrated towards Signal to avoid remaining in the Facebook sphere of influence. Social groups, and their luddites remained on Whatsapp, so we had to revert to using Facebook owned Whatsapp.... -
The Burning Desire to Dump Whatsapp — May 25, 2025Today I went for a long hike after going for a long bike ride yesterday. I am pretty tired. I shared three photos that were directly relevant to a group’s activities and they were deleted. I wouldn’t mind, if they were not linked to the community, and to an activity organised by the person that invited us to do this activity. I do mind, when it was relevant to that organiser, but also to the community.... -
The Absurdity of Whatsapp for Event Planning — Apr 25, 2025Yesterday it happened again on Whatsapp. Someone said 'avoid having too much chatter on this group, there are hundreds of people. When I see such messages it frustrates me because at its core Whatsapp is designed for people to have conversations. The idea that we would join Whatsapp chats, to speak very little, to me is absurd. Whatsapp is designed for instant messaging. This is not a cloister where we have taken a vow of silence. This is a social network.... -
Whatsapp With the Signal — Feb 11, 2025For a while Whatsapp was a fantastic cross platform messaging tool for friends, families, groups and more. It was cross platform, fast and convenient. Eventually rather than rely on Facebook Messenger and Facebook, Facebook bought Whatsapp to consolidate its monopolistic grasp on the social web. As a result of this I tried to dump Whatsapp but it is hard to do so.... -
Sliding from iOS to Android — Nov 29, 2024Recently I switched from an Iphone SE from 2020 for a Fairphone 4 and the migration has been easy, except for two apps. Whatsapp and Signal. With Android it’s easy. You backup to Google Drive and you can slide between Android devices with ease. With iOS the backup is in iCloud so sliding between devices should, in theory, be easy to, but I don’t remember finding it that much fun. If it wasn’t for this apps we could slide from Android to iOS and back without a second thought....
