How Group Chats Rule the World(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
How Group Chats Rule the World
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/16/magazine/group-chats.html
85 comments
https://web.archive.org/web/20240116101034if_/https://www.ny...
It's interesting that for this journalist the group chat is always an extension and in some way connected to her "real" life.
There is not really a mention as to how I, and I believe many other, really use group chats. Yeah. Of course I have a couple group chats with people I know... But these do not compare to the ones that I'm in that have been formed entirely online.
The dynamics might be similar but in my experience online (born) groups tend to be much more chaotic and there's a drift of members coming in an out that's quite interesting. For many that I've met they might chat everyday with the people in the group to simply disappear one day and never come back, or perhaps come back a year or two later (if the group is still alive).
I think it stems from the fact that for the journalist "group chats" are linked to apple's technology "iMessage". But for me, when I think of group chats I think of discord servers, IRC channels, etc. I mean, Ive been using group chats for years before the smartphone came, and the experience I had back then is pretty much identical to the one I have today. I was the kind of kid that was in front of the computer all day anyway.
There is not really a mention as to how I, and I believe many other, really use group chats. Yeah. Of course I have a couple group chats with people I know... But these do not compare to the ones that I'm in that have been formed entirely online.
The dynamics might be similar but in my experience online (born) groups tend to be much more chaotic and there's a drift of members coming in an out that's quite interesting. For many that I've met they might chat everyday with the people in the group to simply disappear one day and never come back, or perhaps come back a year or two later (if the group is still alive).
I think it stems from the fact that for the journalist "group chats" are linked to apple's technology "iMessage". But for me, when I think of group chats I think of discord servers, IRC channels, etc. I mean, Ive been using group chats for years before the smartphone came, and the experience I had back then is pretty much identical to the one I have today. I was the kind of kid that was in front of the computer all day anyway.
The 'solely online' group chat really doesn't seem to be the norm for all but a very specific demographic. It's also very different from what is being discussed in the article.
The demographic is 15-25, by the way. It's not unusual for younger crowds to find themselves in sole-online groups - there's a lot more elasticity and cultural acceptance for that kind of behavior in those groups.
I'm not saying that there isn't a 15-25 demographic that follows this, but I'm also in quite a few only-met-online groups, and I'm entering middle-age. (And, of course, so are most of the other folks in the online-only groups I'm in.)
> I was the kind of kid that was in front of the computer all day anyway.
The author of the article actually calls that out specifically, and then points out she isn't talking about that older phenomenon, but how the advent of smartphones brought this sort of group chatter into our existence no matter where we are at any given time. To people who weren't used to spending all their waking hours in front of a screen already.
From the article:
> This kind of communication has been technologically possible for decades now, but for much of my lifetime it had to occur in fixed locations (in front of computers) at fixed times (when you were all online; this was back when the idea of being “online” or “offline” still had meaning). Then smartphones smashed that distinction.
The author of the article actually calls that out specifically, and then points out she isn't talking about that older phenomenon, but how the advent of smartphones brought this sort of group chatter into our existence no matter where we are at any given time. To people who weren't used to spending all their waking hours in front of a screen already.
From the article:
> This kind of communication has been technologically possible for decades now, but for much of my lifetime it had to occur in fixed locations (in front of computers) at fixed times (when you were all online; this was back when the idea of being “online” or “offline” still had meaning). Then smartphones smashed that distinction.
Most Americans are only ever using iMessage so I guess that's what "group chats" means in this context.
I don't think this demographic is as common as you'd expect - it feels very niche and internet-culture-y.
That said, I've always been amazed at some of these groups I've been a part of. There is a long-lasting group of game developers I was a part of when I was very, very young. Somehow, someway, the site has stayed alive, and I have logged in probably once a year to say hi to old friends. I've never met them in person. We exchange emails maybe... at a half-year, year, or even longer basis. But we always respond to each other eventually. And we've managed to somehow maintain contact in this super strange way.
It's really incredible.
That said, I've always been amazed at some of these groups I've been a part of. There is a long-lasting group of game developers I was a part of when I was very, very young. Somehow, someway, the site has stayed alive, and I have logged in probably once a year to say hi to old friends. I've never met them in person. We exchange emails maybe... at a half-year, year, or even longer basis. But we always respond to each other eventually. And we've managed to somehow maintain contact in this super strange way.
It's really incredible.
>I think it stems from the fact that for the journalist "group chats" are linked to apple's technology "iMessage". But for me, when I think of group chats I think of discord servers, IRC channels, etc. I mean, Ive been using group chats for years before the smartphone came, and the experience I had back then is pretty much identical to the one I have today. I was the kind of kid that was in front of the computer all day anyway.
Same. My groupchats are small Discord servers with like 10-15 people. No blue/green text nonsense, don't have to deal with anything related to Meta, and notifications are easily customizable.
Same. My groupchats are small Discord servers with like 10-15 people. No blue/green text nonsense, don't have to deal with anything related to Meta, and notifications are easily customizable.
But also everything feels "on-the-record" in a way that WhatsApp, Signal etc. don't, both in that new joiners don't get to see the previous group chat history (a bug in some scenarios, a feature in others!) and that it's not end-to-end encrypted.
I have definitely observed myself communicating more freely there. In a way, it's "anti-social media", in that it solves one of the biggest (in my view) bugs of Twitter, Facebook etc.: Nobody will pin you down with a direct link to a post about an idea you entertained years ago that you've long since distanced yourself from.
Ephemeral communications to me seem like an antidote to the incredible and unprecedented pressure of having to appear 100% consistent across time and social circles.
I have definitely observed myself communicating more freely there. In a way, it's "anti-social media", in that it solves one of the biggest (in my view) bugs of Twitter, Facebook etc.: Nobody will pin you down with a direct link to a post about an idea you entertained years ago that you've long since distanced yourself from.
Ephemeral communications to me seem like an antidote to the incredible and unprecedented pressure of having to appear 100% consistent across time and social circles.
This author is clearly in a different world than I am. Group chats are strictly for coordinating. If something worthy of conversation happens in a group chat, the subsequent chat happens in a separate channel.
Otherwise people start tuning out the group chats and doing the wrong thing like trying to meet everybody at the wrong crag.
If there were more than 20 notifications in a group chat in an hour, you can bet that half of us have muted it.
Maybe it's just that us ADHD folk hang out with other ADHD folk.
Otherwise people start tuning out the group chats and doing the wrong thing like trying to meet everybody at the wrong crag.
If there were more than 20 notifications in a group chat in an hour, you can bet that half of us have muted it.
Maybe it's just that us ADHD folk hang out with other ADHD folk.
It's the opposite for me: Group chats are mostly for banter (i.e. I use them exactly as portrayed in the article); if I need something urgently from somebody there I'll DM them.
At least WhatsApp also allows turning off all notifications for a group chat other than the ones you're directly tagged in; not sure if iMessage supports the same.
At least WhatsApp also allows turning off all notifications for a group chat other than the ones you're directly tagged in; not sure if iMessage supports the same.
I love group chats and have muted most of them. They still work even if someone responds an hour or a day later.
None of my group chats send me notifications on message, I just check them when I check them. Still use them all the time. And if something actually needs coordinating, someone drops an @everyone or sends out DMs.
Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/16/magazine/group-chats.html...
Also, a similar article from the Atlantic from a few months ago that was recently re-featured (also a gift link): https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2023/09/group-cha...
Also, a similar article from the Atlantic from a few months ago that was recently re-featured (also a gift link): https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2023/09/group-cha...
> one has become such a dominant feature of my social life that it is simply named “The Girls,” as if there were no other girls. (The act of naming of a group chat in iMessage indicates, to some degree, its staying power, no matter how silly the name itself may be.) Thus “The Girls” has become one of the first places any of us would look to make social plans. At least, I think so — it is highly possible that for one or another of us there is another group chat, totally unknown to me, that is more important.
I'm a Gen X guy, but this is exactly how it works nowadays. WhatsApp of course, not iMessage in Europe.
I'm a Gen X guy, but this is exactly how it works nowadays. WhatsApp of course, not iMessage in Europe.
+1 WhatsApp. I was in early of Facebook and used it delightedly for a few years. Then it just went spammy for me and I also didn't like that people seemed to drift towards using it to show off their lives as opposed to connecting with people. WhatsApp groups on the other hand by virtue of not being public are more personal. In some of my groups we have full on debates which I think if they were public some members of the group would be cancelled.
Millenial here, my group of friends is probably falling outside of the norm, but there's been a distinct drive away from social media in general. A good half does not have any public social media like Twitter, Instagram etc ("private" being things like whatsapp or telegram). A good quarter has reverted to old Nokia phones and respond to emails within 3 business days.
Sometimes I get a tinge of fomo when thinking about what others do with social media, but when I dwell on it for 5 minutes, I realize I just don't care that much.
Sometimes I get a tinge of fomo when thinking about what others do with social media, but when I dwell on it for 5 minutes, I realize I just don't care that much.
> A good quarter has reverted to old Nokia phones and respond to emails within 3 business days.
How does this affect their professional life?? I simply cannot see that working out well at all.
> Sometimes I get a tinge of fomo when thinking about what others do with social media
I think this is because most people have no idea how to use social media, nor what they could be doing with it. It's poorly defined even at the top level - CEO on down. The "goal" of a new social media company is "growth", which means more users... but for what purpose? Advertisement dollars. It's all kinda backwards in my opinion. It'd like to see a social media company whose purpose is connecting people that want to be connected, in meaningful ways. And yes, they're going to have to charge. A good social media platform that was useful in connecting others and charged around $2-5 a month, depending on how well it actually did what it purported to do, would be something for which I would pay.
How does this affect their professional life?? I simply cannot see that working out well at all.
> Sometimes I get a tinge of fomo when thinking about what others do with social media
I think this is because most people have no idea how to use social media, nor what they could be doing with it. It's poorly defined even at the top level - CEO on down. The "goal" of a new social media company is "growth", which means more users... but for what purpose? Advertisement dollars. It's all kinda backwards in my opinion. It'd like to see a social media company whose purpose is connecting people that want to be connected, in meaningful ways. And yes, they're going to have to charge. A good social media platform that was useful in connecting others and charged around $2-5 a month, depending on how well it actually did what it purported to do, would be something for which I would pay.
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I feel like this is standard since 2015
Sounds right to me.
I remember that around 2011-2012 IIRC, back when WhatsApp used to cost 99 cents, half my friends actually paid for it.
The next few years were spent trying to get people to migrate out of other apps (like Facebook Messenger) into it. By 2015 there were very very few people using mainly FB in my circle.
I remember that around 2011-2012 IIRC, back when WhatsApp used to cost 99 cents, half my friends actually paid for it.
The next few years were spent trying to get people to migrate out of other apps (like Facebook Messenger) into it. By 2015 there were very very few people using mainly FB in my circle.
WhatsApp said it cost 99 cents, but I don’t recall ever being charged for it. I distinctly remember installing it on my parents’ phones with a credit card number in the App Store that had no credit, and it always worked fine.
How dismally tiny this all seems!
I miss being part of something that felt like a community. I don't know where to find that anymore.
I miss being part of something that felt like a community. I don't know where to find that anymore.
Discord and telegram both offer that?
I'm glad to hear that and I wonder what I am missing. How have you found your way into community there?
In my (limited) experience with Discord, it has worked exactly like a group chat: each "server" has its own fixed membership, and there does not appear to be any larger community. People don't come and go; I have never met anyone on a discord channel who wasn't already part of the group.
Telegram I have never tried; I thought it was a WhatsApp competitor, and I don't know anyone who uses it.
In my (limited) experience with Discord, it has worked exactly like a group chat: each "server" has its own fixed membership, and there does not appear to be any larger community. People don't come and go; I have never met anyone on a discord channel who wasn't already part of the group.
Telegram I have never tried; I thought it was a WhatsApp competitor, and I don't know anyone who uses it.
I don't use telegram, but I know others who do, and there are certainly general group chats, though I mostly hear about conspiracy people and crypto.
For discord, it's always an external community for my servers. Either software (home assistant, and a related software netdaemon), a metal review blog (angry metal guy), a game company (owlcat) or a twitch stream (a food truck and a cooking stream). Only my TTRPG group is a closed group.
For discord, it's always an external community for my servers. Either software (home assistant, and a related software netdaemon), a metal review blog (angry metal guy), a game company (owlcat) or a twitch stream (a food truck and a cooking stream). Only my TTRPG group is a closed group.
One thing I dislike about social media is the innate urge to "win some Internet points." It just ends up making most if not all content there as shallow dopamine triggers with short shelf lives. Ie the opposite of "deep work."
As someone who's witty (source: self-evaluation) and a people pleaser, I'm certainly not immune to the phenomeneon; I found the only solution is just avoid it entirely.
I'm not sure I appreciate the difference here (group chat to me is just "micro social media") - maybe it just eliminates some of the toxicity that anonymity and scale bring to the equation?
As someone who's witty (source: self-evaluation) and a people pleaser, I'm certainly not immune to the phenomeneon; I found the only solution is just avoid it entirely.
I'm not sure I appreciate the difference here (group chat to me is just "micro social media") - maybe it just eliminates some of the toxicity that anonymity and scale bring to the equation?
People will always seek out communities they can trust. The web and social media were once interesting but have become phony, conformist and cliché due to aggressive cynicism, commercialization & censorship. Group chats (for now) are places where authentic conversation still exists. Group chats can still discuss creative and unique solutions with less risk to one’s reputation.
Soon AI will infiltrate the group chat and the conversation will move elsewhere. People will have a private conversation at any cost.
Soon AI will infiltrate the group chat and the conversation will move elsewhere. People will have a private conversation at any cost.
I really doubt that that will happen. As far as I can tell, e.g. Meta understands the value of WhatsApp, and how some people much prefer it over public social media; no way they'll just burn all of that by thowing a cludgy AI into every group chat that indiscriminately scans all messages.
Tagging an AI in for resolving a quick question or dispute I can definitely see myself using (e.g. getting movie times, resolving a factual question etc.), but if it's anything more than that, I'm out.
Tagging an AI in for resolving a quick question or dispute I can definitely see myself using (e.g. getting movie times, resolving a factual question etc.), but if it's anything more than that, I'm out.
The AI doesn’t have to be user facing. It can be summarizing , censoring or transforming conversations without a visible agent.
If I send you a message and AI transform it, how will either of us know?
If I send you a message and AI transform it, how will either of us know?
> summarizing , censoring or transforming conversations without a visible agent.
That would be pretty easy to prove, and if they do so without informing users about it, they could get fined for huge amounts since it would probably constitute a GDPR violation (i.e. saying that everything is end-to-end encrypted but really sending everything through an LLM hosted elsewhere).
Why should they do any of that? What would they gain?
That would be pretty easy to prove, and if they do so without informing users about it, they could get fined for huge amounts since it would probably constitute a GDPR violation (i.e. saying that everything is end-to-end encrypted but really sending everything through an LLM hosted elsewhere).
Why should they do any of that? What would they gain?
for the same reasons all the other channels have it
So I'm pretty (very?) young compared to most HN luminaries. I've never even started a company much less did something HN famous like writing the LGPL. But I love to hear these discussions.
I'd love to ask the elders this: when did you first start doing group chats, as in multi-user chat rooms with roughly permanent de-anonymized identities?
So, I was in jabber IM rooms in my first job, we didn't use cell phones, but there was an IT department chat, a companywide chat, etc.
Later technologies include lync/skype4biz, hipchat, teams, slack, and zoom.
Limiting myself more to the article's definition (mobile-first group chats), I'd say it was Google Hangouts, GroupMe, WhatsApp, then Signal, now its Signal + discord + FB messenger + all the millions of apps that just should be parts of libpurple / beeper.
But for those of you who remember eternal september, when did the group chat as those dot com babies like me know it first start out?
I'd love to ask the elders this: when did you first start doing group chats, as in multi-user chat rooms with roughly permanent de-anonymized identities?
So, I was in jabber IM rooms in my first job, we didn't use cell phones, but there was an IT department chat, a companywide chat, etc.
Later technologies include lync/skype4biz, hipchat, teams, slack, and zoom.
Limiting myself more to the article's definition (mobile-first group chats), I'd say it was Google Hangouts, GroupMe, WhatsApp, then Signal, now its Signal + discord + FB messenger + all the millions of apps that just should be parts of libpurple / beeper.
But for those of you who remember eternal september, when did the group chat as those dot com babies like me know it first start out?
Personally (as someone who was high-school aged in the early 90s):
1. FidoNet BBSes were one early pre-Internet form ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FidoNet ). Even once the early Internet was up and running for some, some of us lived in countries/places where there was no access, and so the loosely-interconnected FidoNet BBS system was the first form of online group communications I was exposed to. There were even some gateways passing email and usenet newsgroups between FidoNet and the Internet towards the end. I had several local friends, we all ran FidoNet nodes, and we did use it for interpersonal communications at times.
2. Usenet - I used this a little bit in the mid-90s for true communication, but mostly that was highly technical in nature, e.g. IETF discussions on protocol development issues, etc. Also lots of using it to download binaries of course, but that's not really chat. I mostly didn't "know" the people I was interacting with, other than by online reputation.
3. IRC - From around 1994 onwards for me (when I finally had real access to the real Internet), on the EFNet IRC network (and a couple others, to a lesser degree). I spent many hours of every day lurking on EFNet's "#hack" channel and several others. There was a real sense of an online-first community, and then there were smaller and often private channels of people you knew from your real life (the other local hackers in your immediate community, or people you met at conferences, etc). I won't defend the culture as necessarily stellar, especially by today's standards, but at the same time, there was a sort of sense of community where it didn't seem to matter much who or what you were in real life, a sort of "if you're here, you're one of us" vibe. I think at least around 1994-1997-ish, IRC was pretty central to my social life (not all of it of course, but still!). Some of it was more anonymous in nature, but a lot of it was people I had met in real life or were even local friends of mine.
1. FidoNet BBSes were one early pre-Internet form ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FidoNet ). Even once the early Internet was up and running for some, some of us lived in countries/places where there was no access, and so the loosely-interconnected FidoNet BBS system was the first form of online group communications I was exposed to. There were even some gateways passing email and usenet newsgroups between FidoNet and the Internet towards the end. I had several local friends, we all ran FidoNet nodes, and we did use it for interpersonal communications at times.
2. Usenet - I used this a little bit in the mid-90s for true communication, but mostly that was highly technical in nature, e.g. IETF discussions on protocol development issues, etc. Also lots of using it to download binaries of course, but that's not really chat. I mostly didn't "know" the people I was interacting with, other than by online reputation.
3. IRC - From around 1994 onwards for me (when I finally had real access to the real Internet), on the EFNet IRC network (and a couple others, to a lesser degree). I spent many hours of every day lurking on EFNet's "#hack" channel and several others. There was a real sense of an online-first community, and then there were smaller and often private channels of people you knew from your real life (the other local hackers in your immediate community, or people you met at conferences, etc). I won't defend the culture as necessarily stellar, especially by today's standards, but at the same time, there was a sort of sense of community where it didn't seem to matter much who or what you were in real life, a sort of "if you're here, you're one of us" vibe. I think at least around 1994-1997-ish, IRC was pretty central to my social life (not all of it of course, but still!). Some of it was more anonymous in nature, but a lot of it was people I had met in real life or were even local friends of mine.
My wife met one of her first boyfriends on the Religions discussion chat on AOL. IRC dates back to 1988.
I met some people on both Compuserve and Prodigy, although I'm no longer in contact with any of them.
Still friends with some people from the WWIV BBS days in SoCal.
I met some people on both Compuserve and Prodigy, although I'm no longer in contact with any of them.
Still friends with some people from the WWIV BBS days in SoCal.
CompuServe, before there was much of an internet. Friends to this day with someone I met on there.
I first had this kind of experience with a BBS in about 1987. Email has been around for a lot longer than that, for some people. I think smartphones really transformed things though, and now I think half the world's population has one. For me, there is a chain of events that led to my marriage of 28 years that can be traced back to that first BBS I was on....
And the fact that Durovs realised this like 10 years before NYT led to Telegram
WhatsApp did it at least as early (not sure when exactly they introduced group chats), and is much more widely used.
Arguably the best chat app in the world.
From a UX point of view, excluding calls, it's a superb achivements.
They fixed calls like days ago, were awful. But whatsapp is still better for calls imho. With the pace of innovation, even being very late in the game, but very focused, Telegram has very chance to outpace most apps in 2-5 years.
> In 2008, Apple made it possible to text-message multiple people at the same time, moving limited SMS messaging into their iMessage system — essentially conflating “texting” and “messaging,” collapsing group conversation into a single organized chain.
iMessage launched in 2011. MMS allowed messaging multiple people from phones before 2008.
Even though I and many in my social circle have had iPhones since summer of 2008, I would say it was WhatsApp that really made group messaging on smartphones blow up, maybe ~late 2009 or 2010.
Edit: Best source I can find says WhatsApp group functionality came out in 2011, so I am off on that, but I do remember WhatsApp functionality being better than iMessage for quite a few years (and I would say except for picture/video quality, it still is).
iMessage launched in 2011. MMS allowed messaging multiple people from phones before 2008.
Even though I and many in my social circle have had iPhones since summer of 2008, I would say it was WhatsApp that really made group messaging on smartphones blow up, maybe ~late 2009 or 2010.
Edit: Best source I can find says WhatsApp group functionality came out in 2011, so I am off on that, but I do remember WhatsApp functionality being better than iMessage for quite a few years (and I would say except for picture/video quality, it still is).
MMS pre-dates iMessage, but even today MMS does not support persistent multi-party group chats. You can create a group MMS, but it's stateless; you can't change the membership in any way without creating a new entry in your chat list; this naturally fractures the community (people using old group chats instead of the one with the current membership, etc.)
The specific implementation details do matter; and I think that this fundamental weakness of MMS has created the space for WhatsApp, iMessage, etc to thrive.
The specific implementation details do matter; and I think that this fundamental weakness of MMS has created the space for WhatsApp, iMessage, etc to thrive.
Yes, the implementation matters, I just found it jarring that two trivially disproved claims from recent history start the article.
> MMS allowed messaging multiple people from phones before 2008.
In the same way that email allows "group chat", i.e. in a painful unergonomic way that nobody would subject themselves to if it's at all avoidable.
It's also incredibly expensive in many places and has never really caught on outside the US.
In the same way that email allows "group chat", i.e. in a painful unergonomic way that nobody would subject themselves to if it's at all avoidable.
It's also incredibly expensive in many places and has never really caught on outside the US.
I've tried WhatsApp and all kinds of other modern IM software. To be honest I still haven't found anything I liked better than ICQ (before it got enshittified).
One thing I wish more apps offered is per-contact visibility.
One thing I wish more apps offered is per-contact visibility.
The group chat is all fun and games until someone loses their livelihood because of it.
This is like hearing about life on an alien planet for me.
i think i liked listservs better. more verbal creativity.
bradhe(5)