Old or new, the woes of WhatsApp have been plaguing us since the app first launched in 2009. And while we definitely love having a handy free app for all our conversational needs, human nature forbids us to be 100% contented. Here are 10 WhatsApp Woes We All Hate.
1) Blue Ticks
By far the bane of our WhatsApp life, the dreaded blue ticks claim top of the list for bringing us misery. Gone are the days of ignoring someone’s message and being able to pretend like you “never saw it” – the blue ticks ensure that your online presence is always accounted for.
Hack tip: If you’re determined not to have your ticks light up blue, you can choose to take the tedious route of
1) Turning off your WiFi/data
2) Opening the chat to read the message and clear the notification
3) Closing the chat and switching your data back on
2) Last seen
Before the blue ticks was the all-revealing “Last Seen” timestamp. The pros – being able to stalk and track someone’s last activity on WhatsApp (and therefore deducing if they had indeed ignored your message); the cons – having the same thing done to you. Thankfully, WhatsApp has since introduced the option to turn off this tricky timestamp, although the downside is that it works both ways – hide your “Last Seen” and you will be stripped of your stalking privileges as well. Life.
3) That indecisive slow typer (ie. ‘typing…’)
Nothing feels more exasperating than watching someone’s status change from ‘typing…’ to ‘Online’ and back to ‘typing…’ Your grip on your phone tightens; your mouth sets into a thin line; a million exclamation marks and a couple question marks explode in your head. Oh good God it just went back to ‘Online’.
4) Copy-pasting a portion of your message, only to have the whole irrelevant chunk pasted
You try to select a slice of the consecutive messages you sent to forward to someone else, but alas, the whole lot appears in your typing space, and now you have to pray your thumb doesn’t go numb from all the backspacing. Is this a WhatsApp flaw? We’ll never know. What we do know is that it’s incredibly frustrating.
5) Group chats
Just a massive pain on the notifications front, although that’s been lessened considerably thanks to the revised option to Mute for a year.
6) Group chat lists
Ever added your name to a list, only to see it magically removed because someone else added their name to the same number and pushed your message up? Don’t worry; it’s happened to the best of us.
7) Photo spam with Auto-Download
When you don’t check your phone for 5 minutes and your camera album is suddenly flooded with irrelevant pictures, memes, and other rubbish stolen off the Internet. Tripled (and made confusing) when it’s from a group chat you forgot you muted a year for.
8) Having to manually download photos without Auto-Download
When you receive an influx of photos you actually want to keep, and silently kick yourself as you proceed to scroll and click on everything to download.
9) People without a profile picture
Especially when they’re unknown contacts you’ve yet to add. And after they’ve just wished you Happy Birthday too! Seriously, who are you?
10) The new ‘Whatsapp Call’ function
The latest addition to the list of WhatsApp pet peeves – the phone icon that was previously so handy in making a quick call now functions only for ‘WhatsApp Calls’, which, surprise surprise, require 3G. If the person you’re calling happens to have their data turned off, this function is pretty much useless. Thanks, WhatsApp.
