Whatsapp Disappearing Messages a new Feature or just a copy..

Whatsapp just rolled out a new feature named “Disappearing Messages”. So What exactly are Whatsapp Disappearing Messages? What was the motivation behind Whatsapp Disappearing Messages? Let’s have a look at this…

Disappearing Messages is a common feature in most of the famous social platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, telegram, and many more. The creator of these Disappearing Message Concept was Snapchat. Messages sent on Snapchat get removed after the other user has seen them or after some period of time (24 Hours).

Soon after Snapchat, telegram the major competitor of Whatsapp also introduced this Disappearing message feature in their app, hence attracting more user base towards them. After the recent privacy incident, Whatsapp lost a huge amount of users, and most of them or we can say a great amount of those users shifted to telegram.
Telegram took the opportunity and launched this new feature to keep the users engaged with them and it was a try to make the users forget about Whatsapp, that’s quite difficult to happen.

Because throwing Whatsapp or products of Meta out of the competition is not an easy thing to do. In a hustle to get back lost users, Meta(Facebook) started throwing out major feature updates in its applications, including Whatsapp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger.

In Instagram and Facebook Messenger, this feature is named “Vanish Mode”. Through Vanish, Mode messages disappear after they are seen by the recipient.

But in the case of Whatsapp Meta(Facebook) went a step further and introduced “Vanishing messages(See once)” as well as “Disappearing Messages”.

What are Whatsapp Disappearing Messages?

Whatsapp in its update of November 2021 released these disappearing messages feature for its Whatsapp Messenger Users. It has been released for both Android and IOS Devices hence covering all the user base. In Whatsapp Disappearing Messages a message or specific conversation set to deleted after an interval is deleted from both users after the set time, just like Snapchat where the conversation is removed after a day or so… This feature can be enabled for private chats individually as well as group chats. admin’s of the groups can enable this feature and set the group chat disappearing message setting as per their desire…

What are types of Whatsapp Disappearing Messages?

Whatsapp Introduced three types of disappearing messages which are

1. 24 Hours
2. 07 Days
3. 90 Days

24 Hours Disappearing Messages:

In the update of November 2021 copying the trend of disappearing messages, a new feature Whatsapp Disappearing Messages was rolled out, 24 Hours Disappearing messages means that if a chat conversation is set to 24 Hours disappearing messages then the conversation/messages will be removed from both ends after 24 hours of being sent.

07 Days Disappearing Messages:

In 07 Days Disappearing messages, if a chat or conversation is set to disappear after 07 Days then the chat will be removed from both ends after 07 days of them being sent and it will be removed from both user and sender.

90 Days Disappearing Messages:

In 90 Days Disappearing Messages, if a chat or conversation is set to disappear after 90 Days then they will be removed from both users after 90 days of being sent. 

These features were introduced that if a user doesn’t want to keep the conversation long enough or like who wants to live in the past… Right?

Difference Between Whatsapp Disappearing Messages and Whatsapp View Once?

Whatsapp View Once Feature is only available for media, it simply copies the concept of Snaps of Snapchat. If a user sends an image/media to another user and sets it to see once then the image/media is removed and can’t be seen by the other user once it has been viewed. This feature is only for Whatsapp Media.
On the other hand, when we talk about Whatsapp Disappearing Messages, media and messages are removed after a specific interval of time(24 Hours, 07 Days, 90 Days). Both of these features are new and have made a huge liking among WhatsApp users because users were looking for something to cover up their past and who knows what…

What are the Benefits of Whatsapp Disappearing Messages?

As we all know everything has its pros and cons at the same time, some things have a ratio of pros more than the ratio of cons. So let’s have a look at the benefits/pros of Whatsapp Disappearing Messages:

1. No Need to keep a long history of chats and conversations.
2. In terms of privacy and security, it’s an important feature let’s say your phone is hacked or WhatsApp account is breached and you have set the chat conversations to 24 Hour Disappearing Messages, then the breacher won’t be able to access the private chats and who knows what…
3. The burden of the past and history of conversations will be private from the rest.

What are the Disadvantages of Whatsapp Disappearing Messages?

We have discussed the benefits of WhatsApp disappearing messages now let’s talk about the disadvantages because we all know that if a thing has benefits it also has some kind of disadvantages to it…

1. If the user’s account has been set to download the media by default and the media being sent by Whatsapp disappearing messages has been downloaded it won’t be deleted from the device after the set period even if the chat disappears.
2. The message you sent while enabling the disappearing message feature If that message is quoted by the receiver it might not disappear instead stay on the quote view of the message.
3. There are no screenshot alerts of Whatsapp Disappearing messages and nor of Whatsapp view once media, so if a user has taken a screenshot or if the user has taken a Screenshot of view once media you wouldn’t be notified… So what’s the point of Disappearing Messaging.

Summary:

Whatsapp Disappearing Messages is a great feature added in Whatsapp, it is beneficial also it attracts a lot of users having intentions of not living in the past… In the attempt of gain back the lost users Meta is doing wonders with its product and such features are engaging users and gaining their interest back…