App the game

Going viral

There is a new kid on the social media block and it’s making people go ‘ha ha’ or ‘nah’ - and it’s called ‘Sarahah’ (see what we did there?).

Dubbed as an ‘honesty app’, it gives people a chance to share opinions and feedback with others without revealing their identity. Sending and receiving messages is quite simple and it has opened the floodgates to personal comments, both positive and nasty.

“I was curious about what others think of me and that made me give it a try,” says Satashree Nag, a writer. “I did get a few offensive messages but I promptly reported them for abuse. But I did get a lot of constructive feedback and also felt quite good about myself.”

When asked about the controversy surrounding it, she says, “People always have a lot to say about any new app and at the end of the day, it is all publicity. In this social media-driven world when everything is online, then why not this?”

Puneeth B A, popularly known as the ‘poster boy of Sandalwood’ for his Kannada minimal film posters, admits to being fascinated by the influence of technology in our lives, as demonstrated by this app. “I like the way technology has been morphed to fit into the market. When ‘Pokémon GO’ was developed, everyone was out on the roads. When ‘Sarahah’ came, everyone sat down to type comments.”

But that apart, he is not a fan of the concept. “We don’t know how sensitive the other person is or how he or she will take criticism. And if it’s a nice thing, why not say it in person? It’s all about social media now. I may think twice about telling my mother that I love her but I may post a beautiful poem about her on Facebook.”

Jagadis Natarajan, product manager at PayPal and Guitarist at ‘Agam’, is tired of all the brouhaha over ‘Sarahah’. “My reaction towards the way people are using the app is a bit mixed. There are a couple of people on my timeline who actually get feedback from the app but they don’t keep sharing every single message they get. A lot of people are doing exactly that. My primary usage of Facebook is to essentially see what my friends are doing and not this,” he says.

Apart from the argument that ‘Sarahah’ panders to the narcissist within us, critics have been vocal about the possibility of cyber-bullying. Sruthy Ram recounts the example of a friend who got negative and upsetting messages that amounted to harassment.

“Thankfully, I haven’t faced anything of that sort. I think people just write the first thing that comes to their mind without thinking how it will affect the other person but I heard that the developer is planning to reveal the sender identity under certain situations. Let’s see- I think the attraction fo the app is there just because it’s new; it won’t last for long,” she says.

So let’s not take the fun out of it, shall we? Keep it fun and light and try being a nice person even behind the veil of secrecy- just ‘constructive feedback’ from us!