Fun & Famous

The terror of group WhatsApps

For years I refused to participate in groups on WhatsApp.. Anyway, digital groups by the way. I refused to be in group chats during the MSN days and on Facebook Messenger I leave any group I'm added to as quickly as possible. That leaves WhatsApp, and for a long time I managed to stay as far away from it as possible.

But the more popular and mainstream WhatsApp became, the harder that became. So when Amayzine was founded, a corresponding group chat was created, and that was the first and only one I liked (and still like). Even now, the hottest news, juiciest gossip, and dirtiest pictures roll across the screen all day long, and that's a party.

But besides the Amayzine group, I'm also in groups about Easter weekends, dinners, birthdays, gifts, surprises, vacations, and god knows what else. And in those groups, there are always people talking to each other the WHOLE day long, at times when it doesn't suit me. So you're in a long appointment, the cinema, the airplane, or something else that prevents you from looking at your phone, and when you finally open it, you suddenly have 183 unread messages.

Especially during work, I'm hopelessly lost and immediately get distracted, start mixing into those conversations...

Isn't that just deadly exhausting? I'm that sucker who wants to read everything back, so before I know it, I'm reading discussions from others for half an hour. Total madness.

But what's even more annoying is, when you're working, out to dinner, or I don't know, and your phone starts vibrating and ringing incessantly and your whole screen is flooded with messages. Especially during work, I'm hopelessly lost and immediately get distracted, start mixing into those conversations, and waste an hour of much better spent time on absolutely nothing.

I was done with that, so it had to change. During my trip, it was even worse because I always woke up to a huge pile of notifications due to the time difference, so I decided to turn off all group chats. And also the notifications from Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, and my email no longer come to my home screen – and that's a relief.

Everything is still on silent. The only things I see are calls, texts, and WhatsApp messages that are directly addressed to me. I sit behind my laptop often enough to see emails and such pop up anyway, and why do I actually have to respond to everyone at every moment of the day? I mean.

So I can wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone. It takes some getting used to, but take it from me: it only gets better from here. Amen.