Something that I figured out recently about me is that I love social experiments and have done a lot of them on myself, sadly I don't have a white mouse here to experiment on 😄. While connecting the dots, I also realized these social experiments on my ownself are part of and similar concept to "auditing life". It is similar to finding significant wrongs in your life and amending them for the better. One such social experiment I did 6 months back was to get rid of whatsapp,although the motivation behind doing that initially was very different but now it is very different. Since today I completed 6 months and was reminded about it by an incident,I thought about writing my experience of not using the application,yet again.

The incident which reminded me: 

I received a text informing me that I exited the office group and even after trying,no one is able to add me back.I googled about the scenerio found out it is a consequence of staying inactive for long period. So it was fine,how does it matter. I don't even use that anyway was my attitude but what made me think was upon being questioned why don't I reinstall it? , my answer was that I don't have any reason to get that application which was strange for me to process as well considering I had n number of reasons why not to uninstall just few months back. 

Few months back 

I was very active on WhatsApp earlier and When I uninstalled it, I considered it a big deal for me. I was even not sure that the decision will be reversed within 6 hr or 6 days but was very sure it won't last more than that. For me, It felt like doing an impossible thing to an extent that when I completed 6 days I wrote a whole blog on it and again one after a month, and as I expressed in that last blog, the initial intention of uninstalling actually has taken a back seat and I have actually started enjoying being away from that platform.

My account has been officially deleted now for staying inactive makes me think that even though the application algorithm knows to filter out inactive people, we humans are still struggling to implement that in our life. 😉

Now the experience part

A few things I realized during this period about that application are:

1) Dissociation is not that hard. While this experiment has made me realize that getting dissociation from anything specially any addiction is not that tough as we think. Initially, it does bother you but later on, that thing will hardly matter to you. Also, felt dissociating from people is still the hardest and longest process and no other addiction can compete with it.

I still know people who will remember their parents each day even after years of them passing away, people walking miles to get a glimpse of their childhood crush, and people remembering their high school teacher after every achievement or disappointment.

Addiction of people is the biggest addiction,hence proved 😅

2) The quality of people in your life improves and quantity gets reduced:Not being on that application significantly reduces the people you interact with which also results in those formality sake conversations, the late-night short talks, and the big inactive conversations getting eliminated thus you focus and interact with few people whom you need, and who value you. Either have meaningful, important or deep conversations or no conversations at all. 

3) The big realization: The people who are genuinely invested in you and are interested will find ways to stay connected. 

I even have a fun story of one friend messaging me on the Google photos application once and then even a couple of people using SMS for needed conversations.Also, the quality of the conversation has improved significantly.

4) Whatsapp is not as necessary as we think it is: Neither is not having it is a big deal. I am sure, a few years from now,we all will move to new channel of communication and ignore this application as well, just like we did with Orkut, Facebook, Sms, and handwritten letters. 

5) Uninstalling WhatsApp doesn't have much effect on your overall communication: I still got emails for work, SMS & voice calls for important conversations. Infact not having whatsapp helps in creating invisible boundaries,which helps

6) For me, alternatives like Instagram worked better than WhatsApp for communicating with filtered-out people, Internet voice calls, video calls, and international calls, if needed. The reason I felt Instagram was a better alternative is also that I never got addicted to this application thus I am the one controlling the application, the application is still not controlling me.  I have kept it uninstalled as well for more than 3 months in last 6 month period with no effort. Also, there you can filter out the people you want to interact with and no random person can be sleek in your inbox, unlike WhatsApp these days.

7) Other people Interest: Like I mentioned in the previous article too. The fact you are not using WhatsApp gains a surprise reaction  and attracts a lot of judgmental eyes too. Some get genuinely interested in knowing the reason, some start considering you secretive, some even guess I am just being rude and not sharing the number, and some consider you stupid but one thing is for sure, this fact alone attracts lot of interest when revealed which is mostly weird for me as this made me uncomfortable at times but then value on benefits side is way high thus these reactions never discouraged to reverse my action.

8) Doesn't improve focus or serve any high hopes: My cousin who is preparing for the civil examination got influenced to do the same with intention of improving his focus. He didn't last more than 2 days but also there was no improvement in focus, the screen time for him infact increased for him as he kept on checking his phone and to avoid WhatsApp  his youtube time got increased significantly. For me too, this doesn't changed my life drastically and the only positives were the ones stated in the above points. 

Going forward:

Now after a long time has already passed, I might get back to the application anyway especially with the new year starting but then I have to find a reason or motivation to do so. 

When I left it, I only had one stupid reason to do so and a hundred reasons why not to do so but then that one was way too important to me, and still is to some extent but very honestly I don't have one single good reason why to get back on the application. All those hundred reasons have vanished along with the one why I started. This decision for me now has gone to  "doesn't matter" category.  

I am enjoying this personal space and might keep it like that for a little longer time. At times I also think about what kind of reaction rereading this article will I have in my late 20thies,30thies and hopefully 90thies 😅. The reason I write here is to have my own personal virtual journal to read when I am old.

Also,last but the most important realization: 

Any addiction can be overcome. I am thinking to try this on my fast food eating habit too, for now, that looks impossible to me but who knows? I might be able to achieve that as well afterall I KNOW THE PATH OF DISSOCIATION NOW. 

If you are still reading thank you for reading this long one. I write to gain some clarity with my thoughts and for my own shelf but seeing the organic growth in the reach of these articles makes me happy and wish that these journals of experiences, social experimenting, and auditing of life can make a positive impact on even a single person decision or life will be brownie points and make me feel good about the person I am. All selfish reasons you know. 

If you are interested in knowing the initial day experience you can read the previous blog too from the below links 

1) 1 Week without WhatsApp: Click to read

2) 1 Month without WhatsApp: Click here to read

                    Thanks, a lot, and Tada