We all have been wishing to tell how annoying a person is or which of their habits are unlikable on the part of many but due to hesitation or fear, we were not able to do so till now! However, with the launch of Sarahah app which has been developed by Zain al-Abidin Tawfiq, an app developer from Saudi Arabia, this task has become easier in view of the fact that Sarahah allows a user to message anyone on the app and the identity of the sender won’t be disclosed. However, this anonymity might also result in hateful messages and this is now happening with the app.
What is Sarahah app?
As per Google Play Store,
“Sarahah helps people self-develop by receiving constructive anonymous feedback.”
If you analyze the meaning of Sarahah, it’s “honesty” in the Arabic language and undoubtedly, this app delivers honesty but in an anonymous way. Android and iOS users can avail Sarahah in two languages – Arabic and English.
How does Sarahah work?
Sarahah works like just all other apps; download it, set up an account, enter username, name, email and password and that’s all! You don’t need to enter your contact number and after logging in, share your Sarahah link on social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp. Everybody who gets your link can message you, be it friends or strangers.
How to send a message?
Just click on the link and a text box with message “Leave a constructive message” will appear. Type the message and press ‘send’. The receiver gets only the message and not the sender’s identity.
Tabs:
The app contains four tabs – Messages, Search, Explore and Profile. The Messages tab shows each sent, received and favorite message. You have the facility of marking a message as favorite or reporting it; however, there’s not much information as to what happens after a message is reported. In the Search tab, you can search for people whom you can send an anonymous message. Talking of Explore, it’s not live so far and the page has a note,
“SOON. This feature will be available next update, be alert!”
As the name suggests, “Profile” allows a user to manage his/her profile and displays profile pic, username as well as the number of messages that the user has received so far.
Ever-growing popularity:
The app became quite famous and BBC reported that there are already more than 300 million users on Sarahah. What’s more, in the month of July, it was on the top position in Apple App Store in over 30 nations. Snapchat users also liked it to such an extent that they linked Sarahah profiles to Snapchat Stories. The app is very easy to use and this is also one aspect as to why it’s gaining so much popularity.
Cyber bullying:
Sarahah allows a user to report a message or block a user; however, as we have already mentioned, there’s no clarity as to what happens when a user does either of the two things. Hence, it’s very difficult to avoid hate and abusive messages, which makes this app simply perfect when it comes to cyber bullying.
Even though a user can disable “Appear in search” in settings or choose not to get messages from non-registered users, the identity of the sender is impossible to be tracked.
Four icons are provided below every message – for reporting the message, you have to hit a red flag; then there’s a block icon, an icon of heart for marking the message as favorite and the icon to reply. However, if you think that the reply icon allows you to send a reply to the sender, you are making a big mistake because it actually forwards the message to friends via Snapchat, Facebook, WhatsApp etc.
Interestingly, you can’t delete an account on the Sarahah app and if you wish to remove yourself from the app, log into its website version and then delete the account in settings.
Who should use Sarahah?
Sarahah can prove to be a fun app if you take it positively and use it to let people know their unpleasant habits and activities with the ease of anonymity; however, at the same time, you might feel hurt when you get such messages about yourself!
Are you on Sarahah? Share your experience about the app with us!