Do people actually enjoy constant WhatsApp group chats?

[StayceGerste]

Between school, work, family and friends, I feel like I’m in about ten different WhatsApp groups and they never stop.
Some people seem to love the constant messaging, voice notes, inside jokes. I find it overwhelming and quietly mute most of them, which then makes me feel a bit antisocial.

Now you are all making me feel friendless as I have nowhere near this many group chats 🤣. Quite happy with the ones I have though and frequently chat with individual friends.

@PermanentTemporary- 70 group chats! I don’t know how you have time to leave the house!

I love them too and I'm 60 (poster above said they're in their 60's and don't cope well with them)! They're mostly on silent though as the pings can be irritating.

Well tbf they are mostly the same people - think specific groups for particular events, parties, drinks out, and we had one for a big walking goal which has spawned lots of small further groups as we did other events. People will sporadically go back to the older big groups in order to ask who wants to do another event, then will make a new chat for that. I’ve also got multiple different work team chats on the go.

I'm only in one major one, and I muted it because it's full of such utter piffle. For instance, one person says they have a cold (which we didn't need to know), and another 20 people reply saying "get well soon", or versions of same. Pointless and dim.

We have two group chats for work. I mute the one that the manager is in when I'm not in work, because he pings regular, boring messages!

The other one, where it's just us minions, is much more interesting, but we're not on it constantly. You just get spells of gossip on there.

If you include the whatsApp chats that are just me and one individual person, I've got well over 200 chats.

But, as I said earlier, most of them lie dormant most of the time.
As pps have said, some will have been created for a certain event, for example, or a time when someone was ill / in hospital and those who wanted to be updated were in a chat for that time. It still sits there on the phone.

I don't understand how people only have '3' or '5' or whatever.
Just with family combinations I'm in to double figures, long before getting into 'groups I belong to'.

I'm not in a lot of groups chats, I don't have a lot do friends or see many people irl so the ones I'm in I really value the interaction and the chat. It's often the only time I'll speak to someone outside of my family.

I do hate the ones for kids sports teams though, they usually go something like this...

Coach: Match against Glasgow, 9am Saturday, blue strips, city centre training ground. Let me know who can't make it.
Parent 1: Dave can make it.
Parent 2: Steve will be there.
Parent 3: what colour strip?
Parent 4: can someone take Fred, I'll be hungover.
Parent 5: where is it?
Parent 6: what time is it on?
Parent 7: we'll be there but might be later we've got tullah's dancing first and I need to go to Aldi.
Parent 8: who are we playing?
Parent 9: Paul has d&v so might not make it will message if he's better.
🤯🤯🤯

The most annoying thing is GIFS back and forward, just hundreds of pictures :)

Love them, but I’m only in groups with my family, my immediate work colleagues, and my best friends. And no voice notes! Those are the work of the devil.

I am in school and DC hobby group chats, but those are either not very busy, or I’ve muted them and just check them once a week or so.

Yes this is true tbf

I wish people would just phone me to communicate. It's so much more efficient. WhatsApp = eternal fannying about.

Very very much not efficient if you have to call 20 people to give them all the same message.

i like watsapp overfacebook but its a mix

I am lucky that I have one only group ap and it’s muted .

I don’t have Facebook, never had Insta so I only share on WhatsApp groups. I feel far safer sharing photos with family etc on there.

No. I really CBA with them and mute the busy ones.

Not really - keep most muted and scroll through periodically

I am in quite a few and enjoy them. HOWEVER, I have changed my notifications so I dont get notified every time someone posts as that became intensely annoying every few seconds. Therefore, if I want to see it I have to physically go to the app to see new messages.

This has made WhatsApp much more enjoyable for me.

I’m on a lot for schools and sports. I archive them all and check in at the end of the day. 95% of it is nonsense but I need to be in them for the other 5%.
A lot of people seem to like to just chat on them it’s a pain having to scroll through Rachel and Tony’s ski pictures to find out where the match is on Saturday.

I like chatting to my friends so yes, I like it.

The sports team ones for my kids, I can take or leave - but they contain useful info, do are useful.

OMG why do people share their bloody holiday pics on the team chat? FFS. Nobody cares!!!

For me it’s probably because I’m older, and from a small family so there is just the one core family group, no groups to do with DC and schools so then it’s just a couple of friendship groups and individual friends / relatives.

I don’t even have WhatsApp. I will never download it. If I want to talk to someone directly I will message them. I have a couple of groups related to my rare healthcare diagnosis on Facebook and I enjoy that because I can just pop in and read things and pop out again. And I have Mumsnet. And that’s that. But then I’m very introverted and antisocial. Can’t be bothered with it all.

I’m in 3 that are pretty active, e.g. we talk everyday on there about various things and the rest I have muted and only go on them when I need to.

I was fed up with school/class groups, football, gymnastics, family…I was delighted when work would not allow WhatsApp (compliance/data protection) on our work phones.

Now my default response is “I’m not on WhatsApp, but I’m very reachable by text”.

It has undoubtedly helped my day to day by not having constant alerts either pinging or on my screen!