Is it possible to live without WhatsApp?

Jan 14th, 2026, 14h01

Let's get straight to the point: living without Instagram, Facebook, and Threads (lol) is easy. The only setbacks I can think of are missing out on Facebook Marketplace listings and the lack of information about restaurants, cafes, and clinics that insist on limiting their digital presence to Instagram. It's inconvenient, but workable.

In many parts of the world outside the US, the “big boss” of those who decide to get rid of Meta is WhatsApp. And how could it not be? Some research on phone habits shows that up to 99.1% of Brazilians over the age of 16 use the messaging app. Here, it is ubiquitous; the standard means of communication for many people and companies.

To make matters worse, Meta dominates the podium: in the same InternetLab survey linked above, second and third places go to Instagram DMs and [Facebook] Messenger. Telegram, the first independent app to appear in the ranking of most used apps, is used by only 39% of those interviewed. Telegram, which, I believe, has become a scam app that happens to send messages. Signal, my favorite messaging app? Only 2% of people use it.

Aware of the difficulties, I gave myself a week off of WhatsApp. I cut off access at the root, on the DNS servers of my devices. I use NextDNS, which made my life easier: I added all the Meta domains I know to the block list and activated a specific third-party list for the company's domains. It's outdated, but I imagine it covers a lot that would slip through my manual filtering.

The chart corresponds to a period of 24 hours during the experiment.

One of the surprises of this experiment was realizing that, even after putting up so many barriers against Meta, my devices still contacted its servers. A few dozen queries per day, which may be an error in NextDNS's measurement. The bulk of the requests, which amounted to 5–6% of the total, disappeared.

***

I started the block on Saturday (3^rd), around 5 p.m. A week is too short a time to feel the impacts, but the period coincided with some events that helped enrich the experiment: I was visiting my parents, trying to arrange to see friends in a neighboring city, and had some medical appointments pending.

The next day (4^th), I wrote this note:

Almost 24 hours without WhatsApp and so far I haven't missed it. I still open the app out of habit; it keeps loading forever, it doesn't update. Am I missing something?

I did what I could before activating the blocks on NextDNS so as not to “miss something”:

I changed my WhatsApp profile photo and left a status message saying that I am available via SMS/RCS, Signal, and email.
I contacted friends I would be seeing the following weekend and with whom I was in (almost) daily contact on WhatsApp, such as Renan (from PC do Manual) and my partner at Célere, through other means (SMS/RCS, in this case).
I wrote down in my contact agenda some phone numbers for doctors' offices and clinics that I only had on WhatsApp.

The preparation paid off, and I was able to arrange two events with friends via text message and schedule appointments by phone. The technological “regression” was smoother than I expected.

The opening of iOS to RCS, an evolution (via the internet!) of SMS, made it much easier. Most people use Android; with SMS, the experience is way worse than with so-called OTT (over the top) apps, such as WhatsApp. RCS levels the playing field.

Everyone I spoke to was unfamiliar with RCS. They were all surprised by an “SMS that looks like WhatsApp.” And with good reason, because the experience is really good. I’ll talk more about that in another post.

The only thing that bothered me about RCS was the way the iOS Messages app displays reactions: instead of the emoji attached to the message, as in WhatsApp and Messages itself when the conversation takes place between two iPhones, I receive a new one repeating what was written, but preceded by the emoji used to react. It all gets a bit messy and repetitive. Apple's ill will is palpable.

What about calls? When did we give up talking to other people in real time? It was so much easier and faster to schedule doctor's appointments over the phone. The quality is good (we have Wi-Fi calls! VoLTE!) and a conversation that would drag on for long minutes, even hours on WhatsApp, was resolved in a few minutes.

I just couldn't schedule a physical activity because the place's phone was programmed not to receive calls. My partner made the appointment for me (we were going together) via WhatsApp. You can't win them all.

On Monday (12^th), the day of the activity, I mentioned that I couldn't get through. The owner was very helpful and said that their phone probably had no credit, which is why it didn't accept my call. She promised to fix the issue and gave me her personal phone number in case I still couldn't call the studio to schedule a future appointment.

***

In a little book that could have been a blog post, Please close your eyes, Korean/German philosopher Byung-Chul Han rambles about the shrinking of the present. Why does time seem to pass so quickly today? Is it acceleration?

The subject is one of the favorites of this Manual do Usuário, and the reading came in handy. For Han,

What is disturbing about the current experience of time is not acceleration as such, but the lack of conclusion, that is, the lack of cadence and rhythm in things.

At the beginning of this text, I mentioned that I spent the week apprehensive about the possibility of missing some important message. That feeling was eclipsed by the peace I gained, which someone might mistake for boredom, but which was very beneficial to me.

I attribute the calm to the disappearance of WhatsApp groups from my life. Even though I join them sparingly, there are several and they are all useful, cool, or with people I care about. As good as they are, they overload the brain — or, in Han's terms, they are several subjects lacking any kind of conclusion.

This blog’s paying subscribers group, for example, always has interesting conversation, valuable tips, and — I may be biased, but — very nice people. And yet, it was somewhat of a relief not to have to follow all the talk. Even though I had long since given up on reading all the messages posted there, the fact that the messages were accessible, waiting for me, caused me unease. This applies to all other groups.

Does this mean I will close the subscriber group on WhatsApp? No. Many people in the group have told me that the group is one of the main (sometimes the main) reasons for subscribing. And there is also the fact that I am a little… different, with very low social battery capacity. Maybe normal people aren't as affected as I am by the avalanche of messages received on WhatsApp. For me, written text (and audio too), combined with asynchronous dialogues and the lack of conclusion, generate a bomb of anxiety and cognitive overload.

I ended the experiment late Friday afternoon (9^th). I opened WhatsApp and was faced with only unread messages in groups. I didn't open any of them.

Instead, I decided to extend the experiment indefinitely. I downloaded and converted my number to WhatsApp Business so I could set up an away message, triggered every time someone sends me a private message:

Hello! I am not using WhatsApp. To contact me, there are several alternatives:

Send a text message (SMS/RCS).

Send a message on Signal.

Send an email to rodrigo@ghed.in

Call me. (I answer calls, no problem).

Thank you for your understanding!

WA Business requires an internet connection to send the message, which seems counterintuitive to me. Perhaps it has something to do with end-to-end encryption, or maybe it's just another dirty tactic by Meta to force businesses to stay connected at all times, even when they're not there.