Especean

Wellbeing

Group Chats 

Adapted from the original source: How to manage Group Chats (safeonsocial.com)

 

Group chats can be an excellent way for several people to participate in an online conversation together. Users are getting younger and younger, often utilising HouseParty, snapchat, Discord and other apps. They can be both helpful and harmful. Notifications ping all hours of the day, stacks of unread messages build up until they are not worth the effort to catch up on, and important information gets lost in the stream.

 

We have dealt with several situations so far in 2021 where issues have arisen because of comments made or inappropriate content shared within group chats. Parents need to remain vigilant in checking their son’s devices as these group chats and other apps can also be where nasty behaviour, exclusion, cancel culture, and bullying can thrive. 

 

Tips

There have been many times when young people have engaged in nasty behaviour about another person in a group chat, then deliberately invited them into the chat to see those comments. The deliberate nature of this abuse makes it cyberbullying. 

  • Keep group chats positive, helpful, and supportive. These are not places where we have a whinge about someone else, reveal our intimate secrets, or create drama, gossip, or spread rumours. Inappropriate images should not be posted or shared.
     
  • Removing access to the devices late at night helps avoid interrupted sleep caused by the group chat notifications and beeps. Many primary and secondary students sleep with their devices next to their bed and check messages in the middle of the night.

Teach them how to leave

In partnership, we have to teach our students the skills to know how to leave a group chat that is not helpful or is harmful in any way, including the actual words to use should they need to leave. Fear of missing out (FOMO) is a significant factor in a tween/teen’s life, so you will need to navigate around that as well.

  • Often kids are in multiple chats at once. If the chat is getting toxic, bullying is happening or images circulated, or anything that may be deemed illegal. Take a screenshot and log out, so they do not find themselves in a “guilty by association” situation if something gets reported.
     
  • Sometimes they have got no other option but to leave a group chat—the notifications have become too much, the conversation has become increasingly irrelevant, and their phone has become cluttered with too many group chats for them to keep across them all. In most cases, the exit button is easy to find.
     
  • In the case of group chats on Instagram, tap the header banner in a group conversation to see its participants and then tap on Leave Conversation to quit it.
     
  • Make sure they know they should not feel compelled to respond straight away or be a part of every single interaction. Remember that just because there are only six participants in a private chat does not mean that the chat will remain private. There are plenty of ways these chats can become very public.
     
  • Avoid using late at night or let people know when they are signing off for the day.
     
  • If getting overloaded with alerts, change the way chat notifications appear. Make those pings silent and invisible quickly on both Android and iOS.
     
  • On Android, open up Settings, go to Apps and Notifications, and choose an app to make changes.
     
  • On iOS, take even more control over the alerts style: from Settings, pick Notifications, then tap on a particular messaging app to see the available options.
     
  • It is also useful to silence individual conversations temporarily. It is easy to make sure alerts from certain people come through while limiting the number of pings from everyone in the chat.
     
  • Most messaging tools and group chat apps allow conversations to be muted for a period, and the option should be easy to find in the app of choice. If not, a simple google search will give instructions.
     
  • Teach them to be in charge and confident in their relationships. Their friends will understand that their refusal to engage at every moment has nothing to do with the state of their relationship. They will understand this is the way they manage their time, their devices, and their priorities.

Robert Simpson

Director of Wellbeing