One of the most important benefits of internet is the fact that it has helped us to stay connected with the close ones.
Some years ago, text messages were much in demand and I remember many of our friends frequently changing their mobile service providers as cheaper and cheaper message packs were launched. I guess at least young readers of this article have witnessed this. As they say, exchange of information became quite easy and faster after this rise of mobile world. Making and breaking relationships became easier, especially after the wide spread use of WhatsApp. And as a result, people became faster at making and breaking relationships.
The Life-cycle of a Relationship
Can you blame WhatsApp for your broken relationship?
To answer this question in its totality, we should actually consider the life cycle of a relationship.
1. Liking a person
Of course, the first way towards a relationship is that you start liking the person. You see him or her around, and you get touched, melted, affected by something- it might be the knowledge of that person, the way he/she walks, smiles, looks or whatever the lover is attracted to.
After you realize that you like someone, you move to the next stage, which is knowing more about the person
2. Knowing more about him/her
Once you find out the one you like, you would try to know more and more about that person. You will take the same elective subject that person takes or you will join the same sports group in the college which that person has joined. Then you will start communicating with the person – in order to to know more and more about him/her. In today’s age, you will use WhatsApp to its fullest.
In olden days, letters were used to know more about the lover as it was quite difficult to meet the person in public. As technology has improved and society has evolved, knowing more has become much faster and easier.
3. The Boredom
Every relationship enters the state of boredom eventually. The closer you are, the faster it comes. I would say this is the toughest phase of any relationship. 98% of the relationships fail at this stage. It happens when you know too much about the person as you are very close to him. You start to realize the person in his/her totality- along with the good part, comes the bad part. This is the stage where you have to understand each other and give the other person his or her space.
The dialogues become irritating more often in this phase. You start taking each other for granted. How you deal this boredom decides the entire future of the relationship.
4. Death or Re-birth
If both of you with stand the boredom, the relationship gets reborn. If you fail to do so, it breaks. When you accept a lover, you have to accept him or her along with the negative qualities. Relationship is not a tailor made suit in which you two can fit; it is a patch-worked robe which you two together have to stitch so that both of you can comfortably fit inside. If this does not happen, the relationship dies.
WhatsApp and our relationships
I guess, in the era of love letters, it used to take at-least a few months to get some idea about the person we loved; thanks to the slow media. As you can see, in the older days, the second and third stage used to take a long time. Knowing each others sometimes used to take years and years due to the slow media. So, in olden days, a couple usually needed at-least 2-3 three years before coming to the stage of boredom. Due to such a big time investment, opportunity cost of making such relationships was very high. So, soon after one relationship or even from the friends’ experiences, people used to learn to keep away from love-affairs.
Because of rise of text messages and now WhatsApp, this time has come down to a few months or even a few weeks and hence, the opportunity cost of falling in love has gone down. This simply means, because of WhatsApp and other devices, you can reach the state of boredom (or re-birth if you are lucky) faster. And yes, if you are done with one relationship in as short a time as 2-3 months you are then free to try out a new relationship.
WhatsApp has been charged with the offence of ruining our privacy. Many of us blame that they display last seen timing. I even saw some of my friends commenting that many relationships are spoiled because WhatsApp shows last seen. Net is flooded with people cryong that the blue tick will further destroy the relations.
My honest opinion is, no one, not even WhatsApp can destroy your relationship if you trust each other and are accommodating enough. If you mean to spy against your lover, your relationship rather needs a break.
So, when someones asks me about WhatsApp ruining their relationships, I have a very blunt answer to share- WhatsApp just gives you an opportunity to spy and it does that faster. If you do not trust your lover and spy on him or her, your relationship is bound to break; in three years if not in three weeks.
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