A week without a WhatsApp App-: An Autoethnography

A week without a WhatsApp App-: An Autoethnography

Abstract

This essay is based on an autoethnography of my last week’s experience of uninstalling Watsappapp from my phone. The reason for doing this experiment is to decrease the level of distraction, which leads to anxiety and depression, which made me unable to focus on my studies. I delete the WhatsApp app from my phone and left all the social groups for one week. The secondary reason for choosing this experience for an autoethnography is to explore if the absence of having a WhatsApp app has had some genuine influence on my studies and life. The experience made me able to understand many things such as familial relationships, the raise in my efficiency level, and the level of my spirituality as I spared some extra time to pray. I rule in those factors, by referring them from the vast range of literature. Moreover, I find out some other aspects of not indulging in social communities through WhatsApp in the lives of other people, such as my grandmother and a bunch of underprivileged people.

Introduction

The story began when I was writing my class assignment, and a continuous WhatsApp notification distracts me from my writing work. I got extremely exhausted and uninstalled the WhatsApp app from the phone. My digital footprints are limited on WhatsApp only. I have a vast social circle; due to this reason intentionally and unintentionally, it made me a part of many WhatsApp groups. Secondly, I am not a straight forward person, so I stay in all groups and receive all the negative messages. Being a full-time student and a part-time restaurant manager is complicated to manage my studies and social and religious life. The reason to explore the idea of deleting WhatsApp from my phone is to address a dire need to get rid of immense stress due to mechanical life, without spending time to myself and my loved ones. According to Paasonen (2016), social media hampers personal relations and an ability to think creatively, as people spend hours on those things which are not essential for them to.

Additionally, these things create stress and anxiety, particularly in young people. Another research by Swar and Hameed (2017), underscore the side effects of social media, which include distraction and harmful competition, which sometimes lead to disastrous incidences. Despite distraction and anxiety, I felt that I am losing my creativity, as I did not manage my time to read or to talk to mother or a best friend, and most importantly, I lost my “me time.”  Research by Singh (2017) reveals that a person should need some time to talk with their loved ones to keep their mental health on pace or write something to nurture the creativity. However, my busy routine and WhatsApp distractions made me a little unproductively busy, which was slightly effecting my cognitive and analytical skills.

Meaning of Autoethnography

The research method is grounded in one’s firsthand experience about the case, which is directly related or have a substantial impact on his or her life. The word autoethnography is a blend of three words, auto-means personal experiences, ethno means grounded in contextual realities and cultural identities and graphy means to recount those experiences in creative ways. Such creative ways are performance, writing, etc. More precisely, it is a way that mixes the techniques, reasons, and concepts of social research. Autoethnography is the sub-branch of ethnography, which is interrelated to theories, purposes and methods liked with different aspects of life, particularly personal essay, memoir, and autobiography. For instance, as similar to ethnographies, the nature of autoethnography generally captures the individual experiences, which are embedded in community attitudes, cultural identities, popular texts, and, most importantly, the researcher’s interaction and observation, which makes his or her social and emotional relationship with the environment.

A week without WhatsApp- Comfort or disconnection

In this section, I will share my story of the week without a WhatsApp app. I am a happy-go-lucky person, but a kind of extrovert, in terms of making friends, which enhances my social circle. However, my extended social circle hampers my attention to my studies, specifically in the time of exams. I decided to delete this app for one week and experience life without social interaction thorough this way. After the experience, I divide my experiences into four themes: my family life, social interactions, efficacy level, and spiritual relationship with God.

My Family Life

            A general perception is a technology parted us in different pieces, such as several groups of people turns less talkative and spend more time on social media such as scrolling on Facebook, or sending less productive content on WhatsApp or Instagram. It often leads to mental issues, busyness, and e-waste pollution. So, living in a digital age, it is challenging to avoid massive information from different mediums, which sometimes hinder your focus and attention span. As I mentioned earlier, I am a social butterfly, which takes me to many social platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp. However, due to my old mobile phone, I only keep one app at a time on my phone. I decide to use WhatsApp to interact with my friends and other relatives. My first day after deleting the app was a little weird, and I was intentionally picking up my phone again and again to see the WhatsApp notifications. My family noticed my restlessness and threw meaningful smiles to me; one of my family members asked me, “Hey, are you looking for something or waiting for someone on WhatsApp.” I felt a little shy as my family knows about my crush, and the breakfast ended with a chorus laugh of my whole family. I realized that this is very often thing foe me when I was ten years old, but now things are changed, during the family time, I was continuously busy on my phone. I do not remember any family chat or argument as I was away from them. Then, I reached to my university and suddenly bombarded with news that the class was canceled. I went to the library and read some stuff from the internet and library resources, after an hour a friend of mine came to me with an angry face and asked me to contribute an in-class presentation.  I was surprised and told her that I did not know about any submission, she said: “I have uploaded the whole content on our WhatsApp group, where you were?” I felt a bit guilty that I missed a meaningful conversation. However, I am also happy that last night, I talked to my mother about her new job, which gave me a restful feeling. My family life was getting better and better, as I started conversing with my family members and observed that there were many things that changed in their lives, which were not in my knowledge. I also started writing my daily diary before sleeping and realized that I am not only away from my family, but also my self. I got time to play chess with my uncle and discuss new business ideas; my family noticed my changed behavior and appreciate my participation in family discussion and home chores. I wonder how an app changed my whole life, and just a small step, which was even not taken to spend time with my family, is quite impactful on my relations with my beloved family.

Social Interactions

As I mentioned that I am an extrovert person and love to mingle with different types of people, and I have a large social circle, specifically on WhatsApp. Secondly, I am working as a freelancer, so social groups help me to get a sufficient amount of work. I thought my agency would call me to give new projects and assignments. However, within three days, I realized that nobody was contacting me to assign work. Secondly, I missed two birthday parties and relevant information regarding my group tasks. For the first time in that week, I realized that everything has both negative and positive effects, and WhatsApp helps me to connect with many user interactions. I started missing my WhatsApp friends and regret on my all missed potential work opportunities, my friends also seemed a little reluctant as many of them thought that I blocked them. Social media upsurge the level of employability, specifically in young people (McDonald, 2016). This study is interrelated with my experience that I  failed to hunt the freelance work, without the help of my social media circle.

Efficacy Level

My efficiency level is quite increased last week, despite losing large number of information due to my absence on the WhatsApp. I gained an experience that without WhatsApp beeps during my reading and assignment making time, enhanced my attention and focus. I spent hours in the cozy corner of my library without any distraction as nowadays’ people are more comfortable to use WhatsApp instead of a cellular network. My professors also observed that I was more informed in their classes as a thorough reading, reflected on my participation in classroom discussions and assignments. One of my teachers asked the reason for my increased interest and participation in the class, and the idea amazed her, she asked me to share this strategy with my peers. After a long while, I realized that WhatsApp took my intelligence as I used to be a competent student in my school life, but in university, I became an average student. Research by Becker (2013) sheds light on this concept that technology could hurt students’ cognition and decrease their efficiency level.

Spirituality and my Relationship with God

The most important theme for me is my spirituality and my relationship with God. In my daily life, I am juggling with my university assignments, my freelance work, and full social life. These things took my all-time, especially my time with God. Technology steals God’s time as people prioritize social life over praying and welfare work (Cauda,1988).In my childhood, I used to pray in church with my mother and also read Bible scriptures, but in the grown-up, I missed many Sundays. My heavy assignments and my social life made a workaholic person who has no time for his creator. I felt ashamed to realize that I missed almost a year, a year without praying to God. When I entered the church last Sunday, Father gave a meaningful look, I broke down into tears and asked him to help me. I felt that my soul is wounded as I missed many prayers and God is angry with me, Father understood my feelings and said “my child, God is not angry with you, he loves you that is why he brings you again in the church. You can pray and call him again; he will heal you all wounds, I know you disappear, but now you are in God’s house, keep praying and do well for others”. I prayed and realized that I am feeling so light and relaxed, I saw my smiling mother on the next bench, and we went to the home together. At that moment, I thought that I am an eight years old child. My mother was holding my hand and telling me about the greatness of God. Father’s words were resonating in my mind, and I am finding ways to help people. I am amazed that just uninstalling an app can do miracles in my life, the most important thing is, and I got time to think. I was regaining my thoughts about social welfare and charity, which lost in my busyness, and then I went to an old house. I saw people looking outside the window as they were waiting for someone, or moving in the lounge on a wheelchair with dull expressions, I spent some hours with them, I just talked about their lives and their loved ones and most of them were upset when I left the old house.

An Integrated Approach

A week without WhatsApp made me realized that a single app had changed my perceptions and priorities. I read somewhere that old telephone sets had wires, but new phones are wire-free as they wired humans. Now, I realized the deep meaning of these sentences that these apps chained us in invisible cables. These wires infected our personalities as we bowed down to their exciting features, which are silently sucking our soul. These apps distinct us from the real meaning of life and dragged to the meaningless materialistic world, a world of technology where people are super-fast and forgetting the reason for their existence. My experience regarding the WhatsApp app made me realized that technology is not something that saves our time but a tool that creates a distraction. According to Kaptelinin (2018), social groups on WhatsApp and Facebook took almost six to eight hours and built distances among people. It also causes a mental imbalance in youth, which leads to disastrous such as anxiety, depression, and suicides. I also observed that the extensive use of mobile phone, sometimes made me jealous or reluctant or even I put my nose in those issues which are not related to me as group chats pinged me do that.

Nowadays, the most critical thing is to maintain the focus during the study time Loleski, 2017). I relate my experience with this research as I felt restless during the reading time, and poor reading hampers my writings. After doing this experiment, I observed that my write-ups were getting better and started paying attention in my lectures as they based on previously given readings. A distance from WhatsApp helped me to regain my spirituality and also foster my relations with my family as now we are spending more time with each other. The negative aspect of keeping a distance with these apps is I lost some professional work and essential information regarding my lessons. This experiment opens many new doors of new thoughts and perceptions about the relationship of technology and humans, the bottom line of this whole discussion is that technology brings innovations in our lives and make us connected to the world. Still, on the flip side, it takes our relationships, and personal well-being as the rapidly changing world is not allowing us to think about the true essence of life.