Technology has surely advanced and no one not even the aged
wants to be left behind by this interesting and adventurous phenomenon. Barely two
decades ago most Africans had limited access to mobile phones which by that
time were a measure of wealth in some societies. At some point some of us would
travel a kilometer or more to get aid from a mobile phone owner enabling communication
between those in the cities and those in rural villages. Commonly used devices
as at those days included Motorola, Sagem, Nokia and Siemens with most of them using
pressable plastic buttons.
Life has taken another shape and most of us possess an
android or windows operating system phones. These advanced phones have brought good
and bad tides all along which is not something new as far as life is concerned.
We use platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Whatsapp to communicate daily; We
exchange photos, videos and audio clips from any point of the globe with no much
difficulty. My attention has been drawn to the Whatsapp platform which is
quickly penetrating among the youths.
The Whatsapp social platform
has been so far the best for many of us due to its swiftness in sending and receiving
messages thank God for the brains behind this application. The reception of
messages sent is easily monitored by the sender and this is the core point with
which we users need a lot of care and wisdom. The blue ticks which are commonly
used to show reception and viewing of sent messages are causing jitters among us
simply because we over expect from those people surrounding us.
Imagine a case
of a young man and woman dating, the two may meet and talk and at times be far
apart and have no other option than to communicate via Whatsapp. If they are
both using the Whatsapp version of blue ticks then care and caution has to surround
them. The man will be texting and when he detects that his message has been
received he automatically will develop anxiety of a reply message. The woman
will be keen enough not to open the sent message if she does not have a reply
message in mind. This will ultimately lead to unnecessary fear and tension
because each party does not want to be blamed for ignoring or taking too long
to reply. If the sender detects reception of the message and is sure that the
receiver is still online this may be a genesis of trouble among the two love birds.
It is true that at times our minds are far from what we are holding and that is
why some people may receive your message, remain online and reply after few minutes,
hours or even days. To some extents this angers some who have developed ties
whether romantic or friendship hence frustrations, anger, prejudice or even hatred.
At these point elements such as unfaithfulness may be suspected putting
relationships at risk. The same may apply to our employers who as usual demand a
lot of commitment for the responsibilities given to us.
Take a simple example
of a secretary who has been sent an urgent message by the boss concerning a
future meeting, if the secretary has received the message but failed to read
and reply in time the meeting may be shattered out of ignorance and negligence.
The society is to be peaceful for development to actualize and peace cannot be
attained if we users of Whatsapp misuse it. You may think by "blue-ticking"
a friend, foe, lover, boss, employee is a sign of expressing views but in the end
all of us will suffer the consequences of a few of us. My earnest prayer is for
us to breed a society where no young man will hang himself out of simple misunderstandings
in Whatsapp, where no employee will be retrenched out of ignorance and pride,
where no married couple will divorce because of being ignored for long and
where no friendship should be lost because of pride, arrogance and anger of
being "blue-ticked."
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