Why I ❤️ Disappearing Messages
And why you should..
Do you ever miss having a real conversation? Is your phone constantly full and cluttered? Are you anxious that the messages in your guys' group chat might resurface as potential evidence in a legal case a decade from now? Boy I’ve got the feature for you.
Introducing disappearing messages! The savior to all of your digital messaging problems. Here’s the inside scoop on why this amazing feature is enabled by default in all of my chats and messengers :)
P.S. I might be creating this post primarily to have a reference to share when someone asks about my frequent use of disappearing messages, as I often receive questions about it. I apologize if this post seems like a bit of a vent, because it is :0 Please overlook my self-centered motive and focus on gaining some valuable insights instead. :)
But First, what is Disappearing Messages?
And how to enable it in your messengers
As the name suggests, disappearing messages is a feature available in most modern messengers that allows users to send messages that automatically disappear after a specified period of time.
The user usually has control over the amount of time a message can stay available. Once the recipient views the message, the countdown timer starts for them. The message remains visible for the specified duration, which is often counted down from the moment it is opened for the recipient’s side, and the moment it’s sent from the sender’s side. Once gone, these messages are usually wiped locally from your own and the recipients’ devices as well as from the messengers’ servers.
Here’s how you can enable disappearing messages in most modern messengers:
Select the chat you want to apply disappearing messages to.
Tap on the contact's name at the top of the chat to access their information.
Scroll down in the contact info screen until you find the "Disappearing Messages" option. It may also be labeled as "View Once" or “Ephemeral messages” in some messengers.
Tap on the available option, and you should be prompted to select a timer duration. Durations can vary from seconds to months depending on the messenger. Select the desired duration.
You can also enable this feature to start by default in new chats by going into your messenger’s settings.
Most Conversations Should be Ephemeral, Change my Mind:
Going over the psychology of ephemerality and conversations
Have you ever wondered why we stopped having meaningful conversations, why we don’t understand each other anymore, and why our hatred towards each other is at an all-time high?
I think one big aspect of these problems stems from the constant reliance on text conversations and their permanence, particularly in three main points:
Presence and Connection
Impermanence vs Permanence
Emotional Resonance and Depth of Interaction
1) Presence and Connection:
Real-time conversations, unlike their online counterpart, offer a sense of presence and connection. They make us feel like someone is on the other side, listening to us, because there is someone on the other side who is listening to us!
Part of this feeling is caused by the ephemeral factor of real-life conversations, in the sense that because you know that the person in front of you is focused on you; your words; your story; your problems in the fleeting moment, you feel a deeper sense of connection towards him or her, as you are creating a unique memory with the individual you’re talking to that won’t happen ever again, which makes you prone to put more effort into the conversation, as does the person you’re speaking to.
Ephemeral conversations encourage being present in the moment, encouraging participants to engage in the moment and respond promptly. This is as close as you can get to bringing some of that feeling back to your digital brick.
2) Impermanence vs Permanence
Ephemeral messages reduce the fear of a permanent record. In conversations with messages that stick around indefinitely, people may be more cautious about what they say. In real-life conversations, spoken words are transient and not usually recorded for future reference. This gives more room for genuine conversations and reduces the pressure around speaking, making people feel more comfortable expressing themselves without the fear that their messages will be stored or shared indefinitely. In contrast, that awkward message you sent on the group chat is now sitting in every single member’s device for the rest of eternity-ish, unless you’ve used disappearing messages!
Ephemeral messages mimic the way we communicate in real life. In face-to-face conversations, words are spoken and heard, and unless someone takes notes, there's no permanent record. When messages vanish after a set period, it mirrors the ephemerality of spoken words, making the conversation feel more like a face-to-face interaction. It establishes a fresh starting point for the conversation, while minimizing unnecessary stress. Sounds like a good deal!
3) Emotional Resonance and Depth of Interaction
In real-time conversations, there's an opportunity for emotional resonance and a depth of interaction that is often missing in text-based or asynchronous communication. When people converse face-to-face, they can experience a shared emotional journey. They can sense each other's emotions more profoundly, empathize with one another, and build a deeper connection.
This just doesn’t happen with texting, due to absence of several factors such as non-verbal cues, body language and physical connection..
Permanent messages encourage overthinking, as the thread is always available to both parties for analysis or reference, which van be useful but is mostly unnecessary and unhealthy. When messages disappear, participants need to pay closer attention to the conversation at hand. They can't go back and review old messages, so they are more likely to stay engaged with the current discussion. This increases the depth of interaction and makes both parties more invested in the topic at hand, leading to more emotional resonance and understanding.
More Order, more Privacy AND more Storage? Yes please!
Win Win Win, Jackpot!
Wouldn’t you love it if your mobile device wasn’t as unorganized as your room?
Do you keep seeing that annoying “Storage full” notification where your phone begs you to relieve it of it’s digital boulder? (the countless mirror pics you take for no reason)
Are you generally a private person?
If you’ve answered yes on any of these questions, then disappearing messages is the way to go!
- Messages, especially those with multimedia content like photos and videos, can consume a significant amount of storage space on your device over time. Disappearing messages help alleviate this issue by automatically removing old messages, freeing up storage space for new content and apps. This ensures that your device continues to operate smoothly and efficiently, even if you have limited storage capacity.
This is my favorite use of disappearing messages, as your phone automatically and continuously creates more storage for itself to function. It kind of acts like a Roomba1, cleaning after you without you even realizing! It’s the kind of thing that you set up and forget but ultimately pays off dividends in the long run.
- Disappearing messages help maintain a clutter-free messaging environment. When messages disappear, you don't accumulate a backlog of old conversations, reducing visual clutter, spam, and making it easier to find and focus on current and important messages, so you can keep the people you love even closer!
Many messaging apps become slower and more resource-intensive as your message history grows. This can lead to increased loading times and decreased overall performance. By clearing out old messages, you can help your app run more smoothly.
- Disappearing messages enhance your privacy by reducing the risk of sensitive or personal information being exposed for an extended period, reducing your digital trail. Once a message disappears, there's a reduced chance of it being accidentally seen by others who have access to your device or the recipient’s device, such as friends, family members, or coworkers.
Your messages can also contribute to your digital trail2 via other users, who often back up their messages to local storage or cloud services, which preserve a record of messages even if they are deleted from the device, as well as users who forward messages to others or take screenshots of messages, creating additional copies of the message content outside of the original conversation. Disappearing messages shorten the window and likelihood of both these actions happening, keeping you more private.
Additionally, some cloud-based messengers also remove their copies of your messages when the disappearing messages feature is on. Pretty neat huh!
But, what if it Deletes something I Need :(
Why you have no excuse to keep disappearing messages off
First of all, unless you’re in the legal, business or therapy profession, having a message backlog spanning five years into the past is generally unnecessary. Objectively speaking, most information becomes irrelevant after 3 months.
Think about it, when was the last time you scrolled back more than 3 months in chats to find something specific for an important matter?
You might be holding onto a backlog of messages out of a fear that a text message from seven months ago could suddenly become crucial to resolving an important argument or issue. The truth is; this is super unlikely to happen, and you can testify to that, as it probably rarely or even never happened to you.
Moreover, messengers now allow you to star or keep messages that are important, so that even if all other messages disappear, your important stuff stays in the chat intact.
You can keep messages either through a dedicated feature available in a messenger like Whatsapp’s “Keep in chat” or through forwarding important messages to a personal chat that only you can access like Signal’s “Note to self”.
I would argue from personal experience that both these options are more organized and efficient ways of storing relevant and important messages rather than keeping the whole chat around, as this type of storage also helps with classifying important information by removing the need to search for it in the first place and minimizing distractions around it.
You can also always create backups of specific chats in various formats including plain text if you think that the time and continuity of the messages matter for the context of the information.
So, using a combination of these features, disappearing messages won’t be a hassle for your important documents and data, and will in fact help you de-clutter and organize the information in a more optimal way! Go you!
— That’s it, I hope you’ve enabled disappearing messages by now, (it’s okay if you don’t, we still love you <3) and I hope you learnt a thing or two from this post about the importance of ephemerality in messaging as well as real-life conversations. ShieldUp!
A Roomba is a brand of a robotic vacuum cleaner. These devices are designed to autonomously clean floors in homes and other indoor spaces. Roombas are equipped with sensors and technology that allow them to navigate around obstacles, detect dirt and debris, and effectively clean various types of flooring such as carpets, hardwood, and tile.
A digital trail, also known as a digital footprint or digital trace, refers to the collection of data and information that is generated by an individual's online activities and interactions. This trail includes all the digital records and traces left behind when someone uses the internet and digital devices.