âTo my parents, WhatsApp isnât just an instant messenger,â said Devang Pathak, a 25-year-old writer from Mumbai. âItâs an entire social network."
âHonestly, Facebook is a little complex for me,â said my mother. âAnd itâs not a place where I can reach everyone I care about at once as I can do in a WhatsApp group.
âMy primary reason to forward things was to alert people I care about or warn them about something, and unfortunately, a lot of those things ended up being hoaxes.â
You are your phone number. Your regular contacts are your WhatsApp contacts.
WhatsAppâs popularity is heavily region-dependent. My guess is that WhatsAppâs popularity in Europe, South America, certain parts of Africa, and India initially had something to do with the cost of cell service a few years back.
Whereas in North America (US and Canada in particular), Facebook Messenger and Snapchat have become the predominant mode of communication.