{"id":88499,"date":"2025-09-27T08:40:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T08:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/88499\/"},"modified":"2025-09-27T08:40:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T08:40:08","slug":"whats-up-with-whatsapp-in-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/88499\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s up with Whatsapp in Mexico?"},"content":{"rendered":"

So far, I\u2019ve gotten about 10 friends and family members in the US to download \u2014 and even check, sometimes \u2014 Whatsapp. I even have a family group!<\/p>\n

This is a real accomplishment for me. As someone who came of age \u201ctechnologically\u201d (well, digitally at least) in Mexico, it\u2019s hard to imagine any other way of communicating with people.<\/p>\n

\"FemaleCall or text, it\u2019s free either way. It\u2019s also usually included in your data plan, so you don\u2019t need anything more than a working phone to use it. (Jonny Gios\/Unsplash)<\/p>\n

Text messages? Like, the ones that you could get charged for? No, thank you.<\/p>\n

Indeed, most of the world uses Whatsapp, while the United States, Canada, and Australia have been slower adopters of the app.<\/p>\n

You see, back when it cost money to send a text message \u2014 most Mexican plans now include them for free \u2014 the emergence of Whatsapp made a great alternative. Rather than watching one\u2019s available credit go down with each message, the ability to send messages for free with only an app and an internet connection became exceedingly more appealing.<\/p>\n

And in a country where even I would buy phone credit for 50-100 pesos at a time, up until a few years ago, WhatsApp stretches the amount of money one has to spend for a connection. In a place with wi-fi, even if you don\u2019t have credit? You\u2019re golden. Messages galore!<\/p>\n

Nowadays in Mexico, you basically have to have WhatsApp. Absolutely nobody I know here sends regular text messages or even makes calls to their friends. The only text messages I get, actually, are to my US number. Occasionally, I\u2019ll get some phishing messages from a Mexican number\u00a0 or codes from the bank. For all other short messages, WhatsApp is king.<\/p>\n

How many times do I open WhatsApp on my phone a day? Honestly, it\u2019s more than I\u2019d like to admit. For short communication, it\u2019s taken the place of text messages, phone calls, and emails. Plus, there\u2019s so much functionality and it\u2019s easy to use. If I want to make a phone call, for example, I can do that for free on WhatsApp too! It can even be a video call, and it is \u2014 you guessed it \u2014 free to do so.<\/p>\n

\"MoblieThere is a reason WhatsApp is so popular, even if it is part of the dubious Zucker-verse. (Dimitri Karastelev\/ Unsplash)<\/p>\n

Now, it\u2019s got its downsides. If the wifi is spotty and you\u2019re counting on that wifi, you might be on your own. And once Meta bought it, privacy concerns arose. At that point, though, so many people depended on it that they had little choice but to accept the new privacy policy if they wanted to keep the app that kept them in touch with pretty much everyone they knew.<\/p>\n

But overall, it\u2019s great. You can send GIFs, stickers and emoticons. You can change your background to whatever you want. You can form groups, and decide if other people will be able to respond or not in them (ha). You can even make \u201cbroadcast groups,\u201d great for when lots of people want to be kept abreast of something. My partner and I use it, for example, to announce to our most faithful clients when a new batch of beer is ready!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s so functional in fact, that it can be hard to stay off of it even if you want to. Nowhere in my life has this been more evident than at my child\u2019s school. Each class has its own WhatsApp group that the parents are a part of, apart from the overall \u201cschool announcements\u201d broadcast groups. If you\u2019re not paying attention, you might miss something important! (When I see dozens of messages, I just write to a friend \u2014 on WhatsApp \u2014 and beg for a summary; I do not have the patience to sort through all that.)<\/p>\n

So what all can you do on this magical app that pretty much any Mexican with a cell phone uses? Well, let\u2019s count the ways.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Obviously, you can send messages \u2014 that\u2019s the main thing. These messages don\u2019t necessarily need to be typed out though, as voice messages are also common. I personally enjoy hearing people\u2019s voices \u2014 when I\u2019m in the quiet of my own home. But out in public, they usually have to wait until I can actually hear them.<\/li>\n
  2. You can make calls, including group calls. Zoom? Ha, what for? You can make both voice and video calls on WhatsApp easily and put things in a chat during the call as well.<\/li>\n
  3. You can create \u201cstatuses.\u201d These are similar to Facebook \u201cstories\u201d: you can share memes, pictures and links that stay up for (I think) 24 hours. Honestly, I often forget to put anything in my status, as \u201csocial media\u201d-type activities aren\u2019t the main thing I use it for. But once in a while, I actually remember to link my articles in a status! You can also have cute little profile pictures and change them whenever you want. My current one is me howling at the moon, but I\u2019ve been known to use actual normal pictures, as well as memes. Whatever you feel like!<\/li>\n
  4. You can have text groups. On mine, I\u2019ve got a family group where we coordinate care for my dad, the school group, and multiple groups of friends (\u201cSe\u00f1oras Desmadres,\u201d a group of good mom friends, is the name I\u2019m most proud of having come up with). In Xalapa we have a group to organize our \u201cforeigner breakfasts,\u201d and another group for people selling their personal wares. You can make a group for anything!<\/li>\n
  5. You can do business. Most businesses in Mexico these days have a dedicated WhatsApp account. It\u2019s how I schedule my pedicures and vet appointments, and also how I check on the progress of my Amazon packages. A combination of automated messages and actual messages makes it a great option, especially if all your customers are already using the app.<\/li>\n
  6. You can still be mysterious. One feature that I don\u2019t love, honestly, is that you can turn off the \u201cblue checkmarks\u201d that indicate to the other party if you\u2019ve read their message or not. This is personally annoying to me because I want to know! Have they not read it yet or are they ignoring me? You can also turn on disappearing messages,\u00a0 annoying to me too, as I like to go back sometimes to find a piece of information that\u2019s no longer there. Le sigh. And of course, you can block people.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So that\u2019s it. If you\u2019re in Mexico or coming to Mexico, be sure to download the app (I am not getting paid by Meta for this, I swear). Calls and regular messages are futile, as most people don\u2019t even answer their cell phones these days or remember to look at their regular SMS.<\/p>\n

    Almost all non face-to-face communication takes place on WhatsApp in Mexico, so be ready! You might even get to see some fun memes.<\/p>\n

    Sarah DeVries<\/a>\u00a0is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website,\u00a0sarahedevries.substack.com.<\/a><\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So far, I\u2019ve gotten about 10 friends and family members in the US to download \u2014 and even…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[18,19,17,58038,58039,82,4635],"class_list":{"0":"post-88499","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-life-in-mexico","12":"tag-mexico-living","13":"tag-technology","14":"tag-whatsapp"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}