this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023
689 points (94.7% liked)

Showerthoughts

30459 readers
1221 users here now

A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted, clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts: 1

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
    • If you feel strongly that you want politics back, please volunteer as a mod.
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct

If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.

Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report the message goes away and you never worry about it.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 years ago (1 children)

And even if you have a smartphone, you are strongly encouraged to get WhatsApp and donate all of your data to Meta that way. Not too long ago someone told me about having sent me messages through a channel don’t even use. I wonder if WhatsApp still shows me as online even though I haven’t used the app in more than 10 years.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 years ago (6 children)

I hate that very much. I don't use any of Meta's apps, except for WhatsApp. Why ? Because everyone here in Italy uses it and without it I can't contact basically anyone. Want to contact a medic ? WhatsApp. Want to send a document to a clinic ? WhatsApp. Want to make a group chat with some study collegues ? WhatsApp, because not everyone wants to download Telegram or anything else. No one uses SMS or iMessages. Only WhatsApp...

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I’ve been telling people around me to install Signal. If you want to send me messages, install Signal. I’m not installing WhatsApp, any time soon.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Doctor: Please send the exam results.
Lemming: Install Signal.
Doctor: What?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

I find it highly unprofessional when people use WhatsApp in a work related contexts. When it comes to healthcare matters, I find it completely unacceptable due to privacy and security concerns. Might as well ask me to print my private health related data on a post card and send that to the doctor.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Want to contact a medic ? WhatsApp. Want to send a document to a clinic ? WhatsApp.

Pretty sure this goes against multiple EU laws.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

Italian here! You just described our country!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

Tbf where I live it's messenger and that's way worse than WhatsApp.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

To the best of your ability, can you tell why WhatsApp is so prevalent? How is it any different than texting or calling someone normally?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

Same is true for most of South America. In Brazil, iphones are very expensive luxuries, so the majority of the population had to deal with android phones. Which google, in their infinite wisdom, never made a decent messaging app that lasted more than 1 year.

Whatsapp had this great feature that it let you find contacts by phone number, plus you got to talk infinitely as long as you had internet, so the transition was very easy for people moving from feature phones.

In a very short time, the app reached critical mass. If you insisted on not using whatsapp, people would just ignore you, the hassle of having to use another app or, god forbid, sms you (sms used to be charged per message sent) was just not worth it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

In a lot of countries, especially in Europe, most texting happens over WhatsApp.

Cell providers took a long time providing free SMS/MMS, especially internationally, and lots of people in Europe have international contacts. So apps like WhatsApp became the go-to, since you could just use your data plan to message.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Same in Portugal, it's maddening

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 years ago

You should talk to your close contacts about switching to Signal