[Boomer]

I had never heard of WhatsApp until a couple of weeks ago. I have some questions about it that I hope somebody can answer from their own experience. (I have looked stuff up but I sometimes prefer anecdotal evidence to reviews from computer sites.)

I have a group of friends who get together once a month. Sometimes we communicate our plans by gmail which can turn into long, rather convoluted strings.

We probably could use group texts but I have known those to get a little “dingy” as the texts come in at varying times.

Somebody suggested WhatsApp. I read that Facebook owns it now. (I am not on Facebook.)

Signing up for WhatsApp means you have to put your cell number in. Of course, my friends know my cell number, but I am pretty careful with it because I do not want those obnoxious calls from scammers and spoofers and robots, etc.

We have a hardline phone and that is the number I put on things like online ordering where they want a number. But actually most of the numbers that come in on the hardline are not recognized so we don’t answer. (My personal favorite incoming actually showed as our own number. Geez.)

We run our lives from our cell phones and are stingy with those numbers.

My main question is if I sign up for WhatsApp, am I compromising my cell number? It is rare for an unwanted call to get through on my cell now and I want to keep it that way.

Thank you for any suggestions you can give me about WhatsApp.