Why you have to reply immediately on WhatsApp
Fear of missing out" - the «fear of missing something» as soon as a message remains unread for a longer period of time - about ten minutes from a young person's point of view - is undoubtedly present. But seriously, what is there to be afraid of missing out on? At least when you consider that the typical chat history looks like this:
Normally, the conversation ends here. At least for an hour, then the whole process is repeated. Of course, you are not chat-free for this hour. Because as soon as one conversation ends, the next «hey:)» lights up on the screen. Hungry for conversation, you then chat in depth until the final «gn8» (good night), until you are gently woken from your sleep by the familiar WhatsApp tone and a «Moagn» (morning).
So the term FOMO is a bit of a misnomer. It's not about missing «something», but rather «someone». FOMF is more to the point. The «Fear of missing friends» is actually behind the adolescent urge to reply to messages every minute. The fear of missing friends.
If a message remains unanswered for several minutes, this triggers a chain reaction with devastating consequences. Close friends will first ask «Haaalloooo?!!!», «Everything ok?!!!» or «What's going on? !!!!». If there is no answer for a few more minutes, self-doubt begins to set in with the conversation partner. «Are you angry with me?», «Am I annoying you?», «Have I done something wrong?» become central questions. The situation comes to a head if there is still no response, because then the other person feels confirmed in their assumption that it is their own fault. Disappointment is known to be followed by anger - and this is also the case in the world of WhatsApp:
As you can see, you can draw on the full range of ways in which you want to express your indignation. By the way: distant acquaintances like to skip the self-doubt phase and go straight to the anger part.
If you yourself are the unfortunate recipient of anger messages, any excuse is pointless. And in such a case, there are only excuses from the perspective of others. If you don't reply to messages for several minutes or even hours, you will plummet socially. You are seen as conceited, egotistical, vain, self-absorbed, antisocial and can get down to the business of sending new friend requests.
The fundamental problem behind this may be that our world is shrinking more and more from a communication technology perspective thanks to the internet. «The world is a village» - the media theorist Marshall McLuhan recognised this back in the early 1960s. And it's exactly the same with WhatsApp: the communication platform is like a live broadcast, a conversation in real time. The chat partners sit opposite each other as if they were in real life and can even see when the other person is online - in other words, figuratively present. Sounds strange to you? But how would you feel if you said hello to your work colleagues and nobody said hello back? Or you enquire about how they are at lunch and the other person doesn't show the slightest reaction?
You would probably raise your voice first - in WhatsApp this is done with lots of exclamation marks. The next step would be to feel ignored and wonder whether your friend might have reasons to be angry with you. And in the end, you too would give up and think to yourself: «Screw you». And avoid the person in future. This also works really well in WhatsApp. There is a function for this: «Block contact».
It is clear that time is a different dimension in our digital world and that this has also changed our expectations on communication platforms. We are more impatient than we would have been a few years ago.
Hence my specially created acronym FOMF. And because abbreviations and neologisms are booming on platforms like WhatsApp, I'll end with WISP: Whats-App is social pressure. And now you can translate that yourself.
Read more:
Everything parents need to know about messenger services like WhatsApp.