Anyone who regularly receives digital solicitations from loved ones (parents, friends, lovers, colleagues) via WhatsApp knows this feeling of being fed up which generally leads to leaving unread notifications accumulating on the screen of their phone. This profusion of messages embellished with photos, videos, gifs and other stickers, moreover led in mid-January an American father to leave the family group where his two daughters and his wife exchanged in abundance, “resignation” made viral by a screenshot of his digital farewell seen almost 15 million times. If the affair has taken on such dimensions, it is because it is symptomatic of the “pressure” exerted by the application due to the implicit injunction to have to answer (within half an hour) and maintain a conversation whatever the cost.
Owned by Meta (ex-Facebook), WhatsApp – more than 2 billion active users worldwide, a few pans over security breaches and data sharing with the parent company, but above all hours wasted responding to messages secondary by a litany of emojis – would therefore be the enemy of our healthiest right to disconnect. Unless hell is not totally one? In any case, this is what qualifies an Ifop study carried out in February among 1,000 French adults on the uses of the most downloaded application in France last year, at the request of the subscription comparator. internet and mobile Lemon. Unveiled on Thursday, the results indeed indicate that this messaging system launched in 2009 is regularly used by a large majority of French people (around 31 million active users, in particular executives or young people under 30), who are also for the most part satisfied with their membership in a group conversation – even if it means feeling frustrated when they are not part of it.
A third of French people who are members of at least five groups
In detail, French users are almost all part (91%) of at least one WhatsApp group, generally family, friends or professional; a third (33%) are also members of at least five loops when 16% belong to at least ten conversations of this type. In this case, they are mostly business leaders or thirtysomethings. On average, the French fond of this application are therefore part of 4.6 groups, affiliations which can lead to some inconvenience, according to the survey.
We quote: “feeling compelled to respond” (51%), “being disturbed by the number of messages” (58%), missing important information because of this overflow (49%) or being annoyed in front of a conversation between two people that turns into a digital fight (45%). Consequences: nearly two-thirds of them have already muted notifications to avoid being disturbed. Despite these inconveniences, and this is the whole paradox, more than one in four users (28%), or roughly 8 million French “whatsappers”, would nevertheless find it difficult to do without the application in their lives. social. Proof that messaging has both become essential for interaction while being a source of irritation or discomfort. Everything is therefore in the dosage of uses so as not to be caught up in the flow of conversation, for example by deleting notifications or by choosing to respond when desired to a message that is not urgent without feeling guilty.