Understanding the WHATSAPP check marks

The new WhatsApp blue check mark shows that the recipient has seen and read your message.

What you need to know:

With the new WhatsApp check marks, you can tell someone is just either ignoring your message or has not seen it.

Have you seen the new check marks on WhatsApp, the blue ones that is? Those are telling you that whoever you have sent your message to has read it. A person cannot tell you anymore that they did not see your message or that they have not read your message yet. This only applies to the android users.

WhatsApp Messenger is a mobile messaging app on smartphones which allows you to exchange messages without having to pay for SMS as long as you have internet bundles on your phone. It has come to be one of the most popularly used platforms in communication.

BEFORE
Before, the only time you could assume that the person you texted had read your message was by seeing the last seen option which would just give away the last time the person had his or her WhatsApp on. That alone would cause problems for people because they would have to explain why their last seen did not correspond to the time of their reply. Now you can choose to panic or not to panic but these blue check marks will tell the sender of the message that the message has been delivered and read!

WhatsApp introduced the new feature recently that showed two blue checkmarks next to messages when a message was read by recipients.
Until this point, it was actually really simple to understand: a clock mark meant the message had not yet left your device, one grey tick meant your message had reached WhatsApp’s server and two grey checks meant it had successfully been delivered to the recipient’s phone.

WHAT HAS CHANGED
The two grey ticks show that the message has been delivered but not necessarily read but then, the added feature of the blue ticks indicates that the message has been sent, received and read. In group conversations, the blue ticks will only be shown when everybody in the conversation has seen the message.

INCONVENIENCE

Now I have heard a few people complaining about how this option infringes on their privacy and how it is going to cause problems for them in an event that they do not want to chat with somebody.

Godfrey Mutabazi, the Executive Director of Uganda Communications Commission, says he does not see this development as an infringement to the privacy of people. “This is technology and it grows daily so it is not a big deal, all you can do if you do not want to chat with somebody is simply to block their number,” he says.

But if you are looking to disable the blue ticks, you can go to your WhatsApp settings and check on the privacy option which will show you where you can disable the checkmarks. This will only work once you have downloaded the latest version of the application from the website.

However, once you disable the marks you can no longer see the blue marks from the recipients of your messages.

REACTIONS

“I think the blue ticks are an invasion of privacy. There are people that you do not want to reply to after reading their text and you do not want them to know. The blue ticks just confirm that you have read that text, bring a whole new twist to the matter,”’
Adia Nambozo , Public Relations Assistant

“I think those blue ticks will help us a lot in knowing who our true friends are. Those who reply and those who just ignore us yet they have seen our messages can be clearly seen. I do not think I want to disable it,”’
Adrine Busingye, Journalist

“I do not think there is an infringement on anyone’s privacy, it is not like I am naked on WhatsApp so I think it is a good addition and I get to know if my text has been read unlike an SMS where you cannot know,”
Moses Kyeyune, Media Consultant