It's been a long time since we were happy and happy to spend some time playing the "snake" game on the "Nokia 3310" phone, and we thought at the time that this was the most technology that could reach, because that phone from Nokia was a pleasure for the onlookers, at least In our eyes, we are the children of that generation.
The world has changed with the advent of smart phones, which we are almost craving for their latest releases, games and applications that have entered every part of our lives.
Technology has taken us down a "rabbit hole" and we haven't gotten out of it since, we're almost so immersed in our smartphones that we've forgotten our own intelligence.
In fact, it is no longer as fun as it was with the “Nokia 3310”, especially with our continuous drowning in it, and it consumes a lot of our time and nerves, although we all know that we should spend less time on our phones, but few of us do that.
Our reliance on screens has increased since the outbreak of the Corona epidemic, as 54% of adults in the UK - for example - now use their screens almost constantly, and half of those spend more than 11 hours a day staring at their mobile screens, according to research It was recently conducted by the University of Leeds, UK.
This has begun to greatly affect various aspects of life, from family and familial relationships to the workplace, as companies began to intervene after noticing that many of their employees and customers had become “zombies” living inside their phones, as the English writer Lucy Burton stated. In an article published by the British newspaper "Telegraph".
One of the biggest culprits behind this addiction is the instant messaging application WhatsApp.
A story called WhatsApp
WhatsApp was created in 2009 by two ex-Yahoo employees, Jan Kom and Brian Acton, and it was Koum who saw the great potential of running through the Apple Store after he bought the iPhone for the first time. In his life in 2009, Koum later revealed that his most important motivation for creating WhatsApp was his unwillingness to miss calls while in the gym.
The app developed by Igor Solomennikov, a programmer found by Com and Acton on a remote job site, took advantage of Apple's push notification feature to update users' networks. The instant messaging function has become the most important feature of the application, as the Business Of Apps platform mentioned in a recent report on the application.
WhatsApp was unique at the time, as it succeeded in providing a free messaging service that allowed users to log in using their phone numbers.
The app was an instant success, quickly reaching 250,000 active users after its launch, and that was enough for Acton to convince a circle of fellow ex-Yahoo employees to part with $250,000 as seed funding to develop the app.
WhatsApp incorporated the multimedia messaging service at a later time, and it was released on the Android system, and since then, there have been qualitative leaps in its use and spread, as it ranked first among the 3 most downloaded applications in the Apple and Android stores.
By October 2011, a billion messages were sent daily through it, and by 2013 the app had more than 200 million active users.
This was enough to open the eyes of giants, especially Facebook, which saw in this application a fierce competitor that should be acquired, which actually happened in 2014 in a deal that amounted to $ 19 billion in one of the largest acquisitions in history.
In fact, WhatsApp has become a viable alternative to e-mail through live chat, the ability to send files, photos, videos and many other features that many use at work, as companies form group conversations that allow teams to communicate with each other, and managers to communicate with employees, and all this made WhatsApp has always been a daily companion for many of us, whether in our personal lives or at work, as the “nextbillion” platform mentioned in a report on this application that occupied the world and still is.
Currently, WhatsApp is the most popular and used messaging application in more than 100 countries around the world, with more than two billion active users registered, and it is one of the few applications that have been downloaded more than 5 billion times, and it generates an annual income of between 5 to 10 billion dollars for a company. Facebook, which is also the cause of addiction to many people around the world, and the cause of many companies losing millions of dollars every year, according to a report by the "Business of Apps" platform.
whatsapp addiction
Returning to the writer Lucy Burton and her article in the Daily Telegraph, where she quoted a restaurant owner in London as saying that he was “thinking about banning the WhatsApp application for employees outside working hours, as the amount of work-related messages that appear at inappropriate times means that employees do not They can never stop working completely, as messages haunt them even in their hours of rest and days off.” But the writer notes his addiction as well, as he concludes his conversation with her by saying, “If you need to contact me, it is better to use WhatsApp.”
The writer also quoted members of the Great Teachers' Union in the United Kingdom as saying recently that late-night WhatsApp messages from school principals "depress morale".
One member complained that principals were responding to unanswered emails outside office hours by creating “WhatsApp groups that keep ringing all evening hours while you’re trying to get some rest.”
Here, attention should be paid to the way employees use their smartphones, after many owners and managers of restaurants and bars said that it was too much for phone-addicted customers.
Companies Banning the App
The Samuel Smith chain of restaurants banned the use of mobile phones in 2019, and the famous “The French House” restaurant in the Soho area in the heart of the British capital, London, announced on its website: “No music, no music. Machines, no television, no cell phones," saying that removing such "distractions" would mean a "refuge" for its patrons from all this technical inconvenience, Burton noted in her article.
The Michelin-starred restaurant "St. John" takes a similar position, in this context, founder and chef Fergus Henderson said, "Your phone is not your spoon to eat, it should not be on the table."
Many would agree with Henderson that the mobile phone is an unwanted guest in restaurant halls.
The writer points out that people's addiction to phones and applications is exactly what technology companies want, after they spent many years to master the art of keeping eyes staring at screens all the time, and to make huge money from this stare, but this unprecedented addiction, especially to the WhatsApp application, began to cost Employers have millions of dollars, as through WhatsApp, messages can be launched within a few seconds without thinking, and some of these messages may contain sensitive information about work, which has created fears within some of the most sensitive sectors, such as the banking sector, for example.
HSBC revealed earlier this year that it is under investigation by US authorities for misuse of WhatsApp, while JP Morgan has already been fined $200 million over the same accusation. These bodies last December.
The campaign to use WhatsApp also frightened many investors, and one of them told the writer that one of the company owners “prevented him from using the application while talking about work.”
In her article, Burton explained that the private sector is not alone in losing patience with the application. Last April, a report issued by the British Government Institute concluded that "Whitehall" (the center of the British government) needs to "control" how ministers are used. The Prime Minister's Office said Boris Johnson's WhatsApp messages about "alleged parties" in Downing Street were "no longer available".
Our addiction to our phones and the constant and instant conversations within them come at a price, WhatsApp has reached its peak, and it is time to put strict limits on our addiction to it.