WhatsApp’s new tagging feature expected to annoy people in group chats

If you’re currently enjoying the small pockets of silence while on a road trip or in the middle of your favorite read, you might find it hard to keep things that way with WhatsApp’s new update.

The Facebook-owned messaging platform now lets users tag people in group chats even if the conversations are not relevant to them. You only have to precede user names with the @ symbol and they will start receiving notifications for chats they previously opted to tune out of.

At worst, the new WhatsApp feature will make it difficult to ignore annoying messages, or worse, spam chats. At best, you are sure to stay up-to-date with what’s new in group conversations that matter to you.

Could this be part of Facebook’s grand scheme to monetize WhatsApp? That remains to be seen. But it makes for a good case of getting high return on investment for Mark Zuckerberg. After all, it’s business as usual.

The update 2.16.272 will be rolling out in the general WhatsApp community over the coming weeks, after which you may begin to receive notifications beyond your control. The new feature only works on Android and iOS devices, which means desktop users can still maintain control over the WhatsApp notifications they want to go through.

Do you like the idea behind this update? Let us know your thoughts below.