For better or worse, WhatsApp has become an important part of our lives.
Whether you love or hate the little green box, it is beginning to hold more and more power over our day-to-day routines.
Here are a few tricks to help you up your WhatsApp game and save you time and stress.
1. Turn off those awful 'Blue Ticks' that give you palpitations.
WhatsApp's read receipts can be the best and worst thing all at the same time.
Panic usually ensues when you see that someone has read your message but is failing to respond with the speed you would like them to. What could possibly be occupying their time outside of your very important message consisting of two emojis?
There is a way to save yourself this stress.
Head to your WhatsApp Settings, Account, Privacy and turn off the 'Read Receipts toggle.
Once you've done this, those ticks will disappear and you will have more time to answer those endless group chats at your leisure.
However, you should be warned that this will also stop you from seeing when people have read your messages, which (depending on your personality) may also cause your stress levels to rise.
2) Control who can see when you were last online
This feature is probably one of the most annoying aspects of the app as it brings out the stalker in all of us.
Checking in to see when people were last online can become an obsessive habit especially if you're waiting on replies.
Furthermore, why should everyone know whether you checked your messages first thing in the morning?
To rectify this, go into Settings, Account, Privacy, Last Seen.
You can then choose to change 'Everyone' to 'My Contacts' or 'Nobody.'
3. Mute those mindless group chats
We all love the group chats but sometimes the endless stream of socialising can get a bit too much.
There are several ways to put an end to this but the easiest, is to go to your selected chat and swipe left.
Tap 'More' and select mute.
If you would like to turn off notifications, simply go to Notifications in WhatsApp's settings.
You can then turn off notifications under 'Group Notifications'
4. Send docs using WhatsApp because email is so 2015.
This is one of the latest features to be introduced and it's quite simple to use.
In order to share documents, hit the little blue arrow normally used to share images.
You will then be presented with the option to 'Share Document.' Voila!
5. Make your point in bold
To write in bold text, all you have to do is add an asterisk to either side of the chosen word. For example *bold.*
You also have the option to use italics, simply by inserting an underscore before and after your desired sentence or word. For example _Italics_.