People are of the view that text massaging is being replaced by the online messaging applications. It is evident that chat and messaging applications have become much more popular during the recent years. WhatsApp is perhaps the most popular messaging application in the market today. It has already been declared as Africa’s most popular massaging application. That is why; BBC has planned to use WhatsApp in order to spread awareness about Ebola virus.
Today, more than 600 million people use WhatsApp, across the whole world. At the moment, WhatsApp offers instant messaging and voice messaging services. The application is much more like regular text messaging. It is easy to use and that is why the number of its subscribers is increasing day by day. There are people who claim that WhatsApp will replace the regular SMS in near future.
Benefits of SMS
SMS service works without the Internet connection. This is the major benefit of the regular messaging. WhatsApp needs an internet connection in order to send and receive messages. Both, the sender and the receiver, need to be online in order to communicate simultaneously. SMS is the major way of communication for those who do not have smartphones and rely on the old mobile phones.
Disadvantages of SMS
In today’s society, there is a real need of smartphones. You can have fun not only with WhatsApp, but also with many other applications. If your friends are no more ready to use regular SMS service, then you might miss some notifications and invitations from your friends. Sometimes, people run out of credit and they are not allowed to send SMS. It also creates problems.
Advantages of WhatsApp
WhatsApp is a free application and you can download it from App Store, Play Store or Windows Application Store. Keep in mind that you can use WhatsApp without any charges for the first year. After one year, you will be charged $0.99 per year. This is not a big deal to worry about.
You can send and receive pictures using WhatsApp. If you do not others to see a particular picture, you can send it privately to your friend by using WhatsApp. It maintains the privacy of your data or content. WhatsApp keep your content away from the access of unwanted users.
Disadvantages of WhatsApp
I do not see any major disadvantage of WhatsApp. Yet there is an issue with the connectivity to the Internet. You and your friends need to be online in order to communicate through this application. Yet this is not a big drawback. There is hardly any place on the planet where you do not find the internet service. However you cannot expect WhatsApp to help you out in a jungle or any distant place. .
Today’s world is a total transition from the one we had fifty years ago. Now we have quick and improved methods of communications. We should not disregard the regular SMS service which is still serving in the majority of areas in Asia. There is nothing wrong if we expect WhatsApp to replace the regular SMS service in the urban areas where Internet connections are readily available all the time.