Over time, WhatsApp group chats are now a common feature for WhatsApp users who want to organise a holiday, or just keep in touch with friends who are miles apart, workgroups, family groups, acquaintances, and the list could be unbearably long. Joy Umurerwa is in lots of group chats with her childhood friends and relatives and has been an admin in some of these groups. According to her, the groups have been the best way for them to keep in touch. “As we grow older, it’s hard to make time to meet up with friends as we did when we were younger, so having our group chat means we can update each other with the little things that happen every day that we otherwise wouldn’t get time to talk about. If you need opinions on just anything, one quick text will get to all of your friends at the same time. If it wasn’t so convenient to keep in contact in our group chat, it’d be very easy for us to lose touch,” she says. She also believes that just like people can have an audience on Facebook and Twitter, WhatsApp also commands an audience thanks to the group chats. “Why text to one person when you can WhatsApp a group?” she asks. For Richard Kagarama however, WhatsApp groups, over time, instead of serving their useful purpose, have gone on to become a prison cell, which cannot be easily escaped from. Whatsapp groups instead of being a place of convenience, have instead become a burden. Most of them are meant for fundraising, or admins who just want to connect you with a group of strangers, who have nothing in common, “We all get to that point in life where we need help from people we know, but imagine being added to like five groups because your friend’s friend has a wedding. I have also been added to group chats full of strangers, only to realise that my friend, the group admin, just wants to get in touch with his old-time friends that I know nothing about. Sometimes those who have nothing to do will liter the group with all kinds of information some of which is inappropriate,” he says. Jocelyn Isaro, a social media specialist, says that not only has she experienced the wrath of group chats adding that it becomes even more difficult when one is bound to loyalty to the group members, especially when it involves family or friends. All that group chats do, she says, is keep people constantly busy doing nothing, making many people unproductive. With about thousands of other social media messages, so to be pulled into another unproductive chat is heartache. “Many people suffer silently in WhatsApp groups, from random people stealing contacts from the group because they like your profile picture and want to chat or putting a meme in the group chat because you want to engage only to be received with complete silence. Technology came to ease our lives. Not to give us pain. The worst part is we would gladly exit, but imagine the faces or complaints from people when they realise you ‘left’.” Avoiding the pressure of group chats No one wants to be ‘that guy’ who leaves the group first because that’s just asking for mass trolling. However, you will turn away from your phone for a few minutes only to find 858 unread messages, which you will have to through because you do not want to be left out. Luckily, WhatsApp Messenger grants users the ability to mute conversations for eight hours, one day, a week or months. This can save members who haven’t mustered the courage to leave, ignore group’s messages, both the redundant and essential. “The simplest way to deal with this is limiting the hours you spend checking the messages. For example, I check group messages during my leisure time so they don’t interfere with my work. Also, topics that don’t justify the goal of the group should be minimised. Jokes, banters and general life issues can come up seldom, but it shouldn’t be excessive,” Isaro says. For Kagarama, it is never rude to leave a WhatsApp group if it never serves you any purpose. “You never actually gave them your permission to be added to the group so they should get used it. Before the internet, we made plans for the weekend or fundraised money and stuck to our plans until the end. We didn’t need a lot of annoying and disruptive chats twenty hours every day,” he says. editor@newtimesrwanda.com
