How I beat overwhelm: I found WhatsApp draining – so I learned ways to curb my cravings

I feel as if I’ve lost days of my life to digital causes. Even though I’m an extrovert, the near-constant drip of WhatsApp communications can drain me; my anxiety over not replying instantly to everyone is at constant simmer. Add to that the element of performance, and the worry that proving you care is measured in the messages you send … and it can all get too much.

“Where has Remona gone?” panicked one friend, when I went awol while juggling a deadline, babysitting, and hosting house guests. The pile-up of 248 unread messages in one group alone – inclusive of podcast-length voice notes – made me feel like a bad person for being absent. Sometimes, I’m happy to be entirely mute – as I was in one unnecessarily large group I was added to without consent. I went unnoticed for years amid unsolicited selfies of people I barely knew and forwarded messages that had to be forwarded further or you’d face some disaster, until someone realised I was lurking and outed me in front of all 43 members. I was mortified.

While I’ve not been bold enough to engage in complete “app-stinence”, I have managed to significantly reduce my messaging in recent years. My emancipation from digital admin has been gradual: it began with removing my “last seen” status. I found it gave me permission to be less available – as well as less needy, weaning myself off a dependence on receiving replies.

Being less present on the app has made me more conscious of time. Instead of indulging in the hamster wheel of responses, I’ve made space for other things: morning stretches instead of opening the app as soon as I open my eyes; reclaiming my attention span to read an actual book and finish it, like I used to. I’ve even taken up knitting – I managed to knit an Ewok hood for my toddler niece, which took three years, but, had I not reduced my commitment to WhatsApp, probably would have taken five. Being off comms has also helped declutter my scrambled brain, enabling me to think more creatively. I’m even learning Korean on Duolingo.

Yet I fully appreciate the connection WhatsApp offers. It’s a place we can share prayers for each other’s sick parents, lift the heart of a friend after a bad date, hold grief and frustration while the world is on fire and hope in humanity seems bleak. WhatsApp houses so many heavy emotions, intimate experiences and a hotchpotch of personalities – while also compressing complex thoughts and sentiments into a quickfire conversation that can be easily misread. Perhaps the intensity and the dichotomy – the joy and stress it gives me, the yearning for connection and the flood of over-connectedness – is precisely why it’s a place where I can feel overwhelmed.

I have considered deleting the app outright. But can I really sacrifice seeing photos of my niece dressed as an Oompa Loompa for World Book Day? Can I really cut myself off from cheerleading friends who support me and revel in the mundane details of my life?

I still need WhatsApp, but less than before. By holding back, I have learned to curb my cravings. I am finally learning to disengage without experiencing acute Fomo; rather than a hard cull, I have adjusted the boundaries. My friends have also adapted their expectations: “She’ll get back to us in 3-5 business days,” said one. But by giving myself permission to not feel pressed, I have begun to enjoy a new freedom. Now, I simply have to resist the yoke of a new app – the coercive appeal of maintaining a Duolingo streak.