Hey Guys, in this post, we are gonna talk about the super-popular communication app – WhatsApp, its advantages & disadvantages. WhatsApp’s popularity is increasing day by day. People use it for their daily conversation with their friends, family members, colleagues, teachers, students, almost every role is using it. Its advantages can be seen easily. As every rose has its thrones, WhatsApp has disadvantages too.
Advantages of WhatsApp
WhatsApp has so many advantages that make it the best communication app, even more than Facebook. These advantages are mentioned below:
Connect with Your Family & Friends
With WhatsApp, no matter how far your family members or friends are, you can connect with them easily. All you need is their phone number. It allows you to chat with them, voice & video call them. WhatsApp works all around the world. So, if your friend is in a foreign country, no problem. You can talk to him too over WhatsApp. And it will charge you nothing but internet data. As long as you have a data connection, all good.
Share Media Files & Documents
WhatsApp has become the best app to share important documents & media files with friends & others. Due to its end-to-end encryption, you can share your important documents & files on it without any fear. More than 60% of users use WhatsApp to share their images & videos with their friends. They put statuses to share what they are doing, going or how they are enjoying their day.
End-to-End Encryption
WhatsApp uses the Signal Protocol to provide end-to-end encrypted chats & calls. No one can see their messages except the sender and the recipient. Their chats are always private, secure & unhackable. That’s the reason for WhatsApp’s popularity. They can share their personal & valuable information with their friends & loved ones.
E-learning
WhatsApp is not limited to only friends & family chats. It goes beyond that. For instance, schools & colleges. Teachers & students create groups in WA. They share important updates and study materials like notes, PDFs, Docs, etc. After the Corona and lockdown, schools & colleges got shut down. Teachers, now, take classes online on Zoom or any other app. They also create YouTube videos for them so that they can understand the topic more clearly and share their links on WhatsApp groups.
Ad-free
Unlike other social apps & communications apps, WhatsApp is totally ad-free. Users will not be distracted or interrupted by the ads. They can chat & video call with their friends in an ad-free environment. Also, ads can easily leave a bad impression on the kids & teens and can misguide them in many ways such as an impulsive purchase. So, you don’t have to worry about that in WA.
Current & Live Location Sharing
WhatsApp comes with Google Maps integration. You can share your current location with your friends so that they can easily follow the map and reach you. You can also share your live location. It gives you the option to share the live location for 15 minutes, 1 hour, or 8 hours. If you share your location with your friend and then you go somewhere else, he will know about it and Google will show the way to that new location. Isn’t it amazing? They will not miss you.
Helps in Business
WhatsApp also helps in our business. It releases WhatsApp Business that provides many useful tools for small businesses to grow up. They can add a lot of information about their business in their profile such as an address, opening time, website URL, etc. They can also create the catalog of their products, add labels on chats, & add auto-mated replies. Now it even has integrated Payment functionality. Users can easily pay their bills. No need to install other apps.
Disadvantages of WhatsApp
There’s a quote by Marian Wright Edelman, “In every seed of good, there’s always a piece of bad”. Just like that, as WhatsApp has many advantages, it has disadvantages too. And these disadvantages are as follows:
Addiction
WhatsApp is an addictive app. Teenagers easily get addicted and start spending time chatting with friends on WhatsApp all the time. They regularly check it for new messages & statuses. Even while working or eating, they check it.
Social & Self-Isolation
Teens use WhatsApp more than others and spend their time talking to their friends. They neglect their social duties. They start preferring chatting more than meeting & talking in real life. With time, they find it easy to talk over WhatsApp and hard to talk face-to-face. It also results in their lack of self-confidence. In group activities & parties, they start startling while talking.
Sleep Deprivation
With the increasing use of WhatsApp and its addiction (mostly in teenagers), it leads to many health-related problems especially sleep deprivation. They chat on it till late at night. The blue lights emitted from the mobile screens affect the melatonin production that controls your sleep-wake cycle. It makes it difficult to fall asleep at night. And lack of sleep can cause many other problems.
Encryption is a Double-edge Sword
Encryption is a great feature of WA to chat with our loved ones & share personal info. But the same encryption can be used in the wrong way. For instance, someone can blackmail someone using their personal info, send inappropriate content, & abuse them. And their conversation will not be tracked because of the end-to-end encryption. They also develop an emotional relationship with teens taking advantage of their immature minds & innocence and then asking them for money or nudes. Once they get nudes, they blackmail them. And they don’t talk to their parents about it. It also causes sexting.
No Content Censorship
WA allows users to share any kind of information, images, videos & documents. It has no censorship over them. It may lead to many negative rumors, frauds, & many other effects. Nudes, porn, cruelty & brutality videos can be shared with no restrictions on them. It’s the biggest concern for kids & teenagers as these kinds of things can greatly affect their minds.
No Screenshot Protection
WhatsApp provides encryption for chats & calls, but it does not provide any protection against the screenshots. Anyone can take a screenshot of the conversation and you will not know about it. The screenshot can be used in negative ways as sharing on social media as memes or to blackmail the user.
Conclusion
WhatsApp is a great app and has many advantages & disadvantages. If used properly & with precautions, you will find it very useful & helpful. The end-to-end encryption feature, which is a good as well as a bad thing, is how we use it. And for teenagers, parents must explain the risks involved in using WhatsApp and guide them so that they don’t become victims of any fraud. That’s all. Thank you for visiting our website. Have a nice day!