WHAT’S up with WhatsApp at the moment?

The world’s most popular messaging service has billions of users but I’m on the verge of deleting it for good if tech giant Meta continues to add features no-one really wants.

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My mum gleefully warned me this week that she could now see how many people are online in the often swamped family group chats.

This latest disastrous test shows a counter at the top of group chats revealing exactly how many within the group are currently online.

A few years back I made the decision to switch off every possible means of being “watched” on WhatsApp, deactivating the “last seen” and ending dreaded “read receipts”.

Why? I’m not just some 34-year-old grump – I’m so fed up with being constantly on and available in this relentless digital hungry world.

Before, I dared to go on WhatsApp to answer one pressing message while leaving others waiting and got asked why I was ignoring them for so long, so decided enough is enough and changed the settings.

Sure, maybe I should just care less but it was bothersome so I locked everything down.

Now WhatsApp is testing an “online counter” for groups, I fear it’ll just be another way to keep tabs on when I’m around.

I can picture it now: “Five of you are online but no one has responded?”

And this all comes just weeks after WhatsApp randomly decided to move the “typing…” message that was perfectly fine at the top of the screen to the bottom with an animated speech bubble.

Loads of people have been online complaining that it’s “annoying” and I couldn’t agree more.

Whatever happened to “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”?

Maybe it’s time for me to give up on WhatsApp and switch back to the humble text message.

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