To not understand WhatsApp group chats?

As others have said already, the street WhatsApp group is both useful and nice. E.g. does anyone have any (whatever) I can borrow, would anyone like a jar of this plum jam I made, would anyone like to take this wardrobe that I no longer need, but also - did anyone see anything last night when my bike/van was stolen, or does anyone have any CCTV?

Our street one is awesome. Organising fun things like an Easter Egg hunt, locating cats, offering freebies (my glut of cucumbers have gone to a good home), searching for local teen babysitters, working out the foxes' habits.
Also have one for our local community garden group.
I live in central London, it's nice to feel connected.

I'm in 2, one for a fitness class and one for work. The work one is only used a few times a year when we meet face to face. I wouldn't want to have one on my personal phone with lots of work chat, I'd find it quite intrusive I think. Different if it was on my work phone.

We don't have a street one - we do a have a village fb page which I much prefer rather than every Tom Dick and Harry having my phone number. As far as I'm aware there isn't a school one, no one has mentioned one.

Friends and family tend to use messenger, not WA.

Im on loads of different ones for chatting to various groups of friends. There’s not much to understand really, it’s just for fun!

I have one with my mum and aunt, various with different friends about different things, one with my step kids, one with the whole family...I agree a street one seems annoying and unnecessary but some people do love a gossip. I think as long as you like the people you're talking to then they're great.

I was about to write this exact post.

We set up street WhatsApp gps in covid (beween 10-15 houses in each) and one representative from each street group was in a group where the admin was the Parish Council chair. It's still really handy for disseminating information thoughout the village, or parts thereof.

Last week a cat went missing on a street near us, so it was easy to share with relevant neighbour groups to look out for it.
There was a power cut a couple of weeks ago - 1 person up the road reported it/got the info from National Grid, and within minutes the whole village had the update (without loads of people calling NG themselves).
When someone needed a certain kind of screwdriver, they could check with neighbours if anyone had one they could borrow.
When the lady down the road was 100, we all arranged to go and sing happy birthday to her (she's not in the group, but her next door neighbour conveys useful info to her)
And so on! It is far and away the best thing to come out of Covid.

This 👌👌

How can you not understand what a street WhatsApp group could be useful for?

Even if you're really antisocial you must know the ease of being able to communicate something to a group of people without having to speak to each person individually.

Neighbours, co workers, friends etc, it's perfectly obvious how that would be useful

Obviously the converse is not that all groups are useful

I have one for family, one for work as we are directors, means we all get the message at once. One for staff, but more chit chat and can any one cover a shift etc. That's more for them but we are in it as well. I have one for our road, which is more for a neighbourhood match thing. 4 class whatsapp groups. A few friendship whatsapp groups too.

They are useful. They can be muted if you don't want to be distracted. You can dip in and out.

But our street one is rarely used. More for big issues or worries.

Family - husband, sons & daughters -in-law; same without my husband; just daughters-in-law; siblings and partners; husband, kids, in-laws, exes who are step-parents and their partners;

Few friends’ groups, some overseas

Gym, two mainly social groups, and one other sports-related group

Couple of other activity related.

So about 15, I think. My very small cul-de-sac doesn’t have one, thankfully.

Mine are mostly hobby groups. One is a charity I volunteer with.

TBH these days it's the way we communicate with friends about social stuff. I have loads of different WA groups - some just 2 people, some up to 8 people

I have a few, mostly family groups but I have a couple of work ones on there too, predominantly for arranging socials outside of work but we also chat about work related topics.

During the lockdowns we made a neighbourhood group and did daily photography challenges. It was really nice and it gave us all something to look forward and built some community spirit during a tough time.

Our street WhatsApp is like neighbourhood watch. We use it to ask for visible parcels and bins to be moved when we’re on holiday and delivery people have overlooked instructions or the bin men have arrived later than our departure.
The street WhatsApp for an AC is used to organise impromptu social activity - a great community device.
Other groups I belong to are with friends and family.

A few for uni friends, some groups of friends I have regular dinners with, immediate family, broader family, DH’s family, various school ones (class/house/PTA), a few fundraising ones, a few with different builders in re a house project, fantasy football friends etc. No one does pointless good morning messages. I love WhatsApp.

Street one-lost cats, parcels, reccs for work people. Couple with small groups of friends, random ones for arranging stuff with more than one person, one for me to ask if anyone available to dog sit for me.
Useful but they are all on mute so I don't get notifications.

1 for work, chat though not actual work. 1 family, 1 family but no kids, 1 teen family for memes mostly, 2 kids sport clubs, 2 school classes, 1 for where I volunteer.

I love our street's WhatsApp group too. People only post if they genuinely need help, like their cat has gone missing or a parcel has gone to the wrong house but we do occasionally use it to get together for a street party.

Family,work friends( all retired now),sports club,close friends

No one has mentioned this yet, but most street WhatsApp groups were set up for the first time during covid, ours certainly was. It started with people checking elderly neighbours were OK for food etc and snowballed from there.

Our neighbourhood group is amazing. There's a lot of giveaways - people who have stuff they might otherwise sell, or stuff people have bought by mistake. So anything from furniture to pints of milk. Alerts about stuff going on locally - traffic issues, transport problems, local planning issues etc. We also have a neighbourhood advent calendar - people nominate themselves to be window no 1 or no 2 etc - all the way through to 24, and decorate their front windows so it becomes a sort of treasure trail through the neighbourhood in the run up to Christmas to see who has decorated their windows. Above all, though, it generates a really strong sense of community, and I've got to know many people in the neighbouring streets that I would never otherwise have met.

I’m in loads but have notifications turned off so only catch up when I’m ready

My family ( world wide)
DH’s family( local)
Our immediate family
Work
Book Club
friendship group

None. I deleted Whatsapp ages ago as it was awful for my mental health.
Just see the amount of threads started on here about how people have their read receipts turned off.

I love the one with our street. Useful for so many things - when you're cooking and are missing an ingredient; when you need a random household item like a bike pump and yours has seemingly disappeared; when you have too much food (last year, a neighbour ordered 4kg of courgettes rather than 4 courgettes on their supermarket shop); missing parcels; recommendations for various things; and, most importantly, organising street socials.