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Group text messaging


wild_turkey

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Curious what other people think about this or what your experiences are. Also curious about etiquette, if such a thing even exists in the smart phone era.

I think group texting was a great development and makes a lot of sense in the right situations. For instance, if you're trying to coordinate plans with multiple people, it can greatly simplify things. I also have group texts among colleagues where we discuss work-related stuff to help each other out, which is very useful.

Then I have certain groups that text just for the hell of texting about random stuff. Some of it is enjoyable or amusing at times, annoying at other times, but tolerable overall.

Finally, there's the dreaded group text with my wife's family. There are 8 adults on this text including myself. Certain participants feel the need to text out 5 pictures of their kids every day. The grandparents (wife's parents) and some other people will then "love" each of those pictures. Certain participants will update us on every aspect of their lives, which just seems like people are fishing for praise or attention. Lately when 2-3 members of the group text are involved in something together, it's become standard procedure to discuss this with the group. Wife's parents are traveling to visit her step brother this weekend and we are getting constant updates of that trip. Why does everyone need to know that you are stopping for gas and you will be there by lunch?!? I think Facebook exists to fill this need for people and I don't use Facebook because I don't like attention whoring. Yet now it has invaded my phone. I've removed myself from the text before but people add me back in. I put it on Hide Alerts but I still get 30 red notifications on my message app every morning and I'm OCD about those red numbers. What to do? Be a complete asshole and send out a message telling people to stop sending daily kid pictures and learn to text more appropriately?

That turned into a small rant but it's partly therapeutic and partly intended to start some discussion.

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JV baseball team parents group text....I just turned off my notifications for that altogether.  I'll turn around, and I have 48 messages about when kids will be where, and bring extra food, and has anyone seen my umbrella, I left it at the ballpark.  I will periodically skim to make sure there's not a notice about a new game time, otherwise, I ignore.

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Interestingly enough Facebook is good for this specifically because it's easy to disable notifications, remove yourself from the group, etc. I guess the iPhone can do it too but that just reinforces the point that you need a medium where you can disable notifications.

 

I don't get notifications from any of the family groups I'm in. I catch up if and when I want. There's a family snapchat group and my brother-in-law recently had a kid. You can try but can't really imagine how many pictures and videos of that kid that my concuña sends. But I never hear about them.

 

 

 

 

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22 minutes ago, Rougarou said:

Go to info -> Hide Alerts

I do that, which stops the phone from dinging or vibrating, but is there a way to actually hide the red number notification that appears in the corner of the messaging app? Otherwise there will always be a red number there from this one particular group text, which could cover up an actual notification of a text I do want to read.

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36 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

Finally, there's the dreaded group text with my wife's family. There are 8 adults on this text including myself. Certain participants feel the need to text out 5 pictures of their kids every day. The grandparents (wife's parents) and some other people will then "love" each of those pictures. 

I immediately mute these and/or delete them. I don't give a fuck. If I go a day without a single unsolicited text that's a fantastic day. It's inconsiderate at best to rope people into this bullshit.

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35 minutes ago, Bill Brasky said:

old people in the family fail miserably at this shit 

I'm an old and this reminds me... Director at work created a group for messages and used my home phone number so when the offices got hit by a bad storm and shit was fucked up he sent a text to my land line. Nope, didn't get the memo, showed up for work.

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11 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

I do that, which stops the phone from dinging or vibrating, but is there a way to actually hide the red number notification that appears in the corner of the messaging app? Otherwise there will always be a red number there from this one particular group text, which could cover up an actual notification of a text I do want to read.

Pretty sure you can turn off the unread numbers altogether. turn off badges under notifications.  But if you're asking for the numbers to not display one particular group chat, I'm not sure that's possible.  

Edited by Nice Guy Eddie
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11 hours ago, Tailgate said:

I think you can politely remove yourself from the group. Just let them know your chats getting clogged up and you’ll hear about things from your wife.

Sadly for Android users, we can not do this. At least not one done through phone text messaging. Group chats created in Facebook and some others you have the ability to leave. Hell, I can't even fucking mute notifications for group chats. I'd have to individually mute and block each recipient to get that effect but then I'd miss individual texts from them.

I am not a fan of group texts that are pointless. Planning events is fine. Or having one for say a softball team or shit like that. We used to have this group chat created by a guy we play fantasy football with. He would randomly text us what he's drinking or food he's eating. Pointless notifications. And he used it as a diary about his life. Stuff like that, bugs the hell out of me.

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On a related note, about 5 years ago Mrs. Brat’s cousins persuaded her to open a FB account. She never posted anything, but after 6 months of getting bombarded by all the cute cat pics, clever household tips, and feel good poems, she basically told them to fuck off.  She told them if they wanted to say something of substance to her to pick up the telephone and call her..

FB started sending her notification reminders via emails which she ignored, then finally automatically deleted her account last week.

Edited by Armybrat
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2 hours ago, hornian said:

In every group text, there’s a secondary group text with everyone except one number, talking shit about the excluded number. 

If you’re not in that second, shit talking group, the excluded number is yours. 

This made coffee come out of my nose.

I'm not in any second groups.

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My extended family uses group texts. Two of my cousins, female twins in their early 30s, cannot figure out that they should check the recipients before clicking send. They just find the most recent group text with some of the needed participants, type, and hit send. It doesn't matter if it isn't relevant to half the people on the text.

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I love them. My aunts and cousins are spread out around the world and the group text keeps us all connected to each other, like facebook was before it turned into a propoganda machine. I have one with like 6 or 7 buddies dedicated to Cowboys talk, and another one with 3 or 4 dedicated to Stars talk

I keep my phone on silent at all times so the notifications dont bother me. When I look at my phone if I feel like reading the messages they will be there.

12 hours ago, Vic Mackey said:

We used to have this group chat created by a guy we play fantasy football with. He would randomly text us what he's drinking or food he's eating. Pointless notifications. And he used it as a diary about his life

We had a dude like that get booted out of our league last year and it was pretty annoying, like when I check the recruiting thread and see page after page of Giles rehash. One guy in that league got a new phone or something and the next year some little kid ended up with his same number and got stuck in the group text. Despite pleas from the kid and his mother, we never removed him from the group

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23 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

JV baseball team parents group text....I just turned off my notifications for that altogether.  I'll turn around, and I have 48 messages about when kids will be where, and bring extra food, and has anyone seen my umbrella, I left it at the ballpark.  I will periodically skim to make sure there's not a notice about a new game time, otherwise, I ignore.

Umbrellas at a ballpark?

heathens...

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Just saw this. I hate group texts. My sister has 7 kids between the ages of 25-15 and every time I get included in a group family text they like to fill it with jokes/puns that never end. I'm not listening to my phone going off every 3 seconds for 2 hours.

 

I don't why people say you can't turn off notifications for a group text on Android. I do it all the time. Just mutes the notifications for that group only, not the individuals in it.

 

A few days ago my sis-in-law called to tell me my niece had Bell's Palsy but would be okay. A few minutes later, my mom sent out a group text about it. I made a quick comment that I'd gotten a direct call and then turned off notifications. About 8 hours later my mom texted me directly asking if I saw that my dad was in the hospital. She had added it to the previous group text. Then she got mad at me for muting the notifications of the previous text rather than admitting that 1) her grandkids go psycho on group texts and 2) I should have gotten a direct phone call letting me know my dad was in the hospital. After that, I got removed from the group text (woohoo) and got updates thru direct text.

 

 

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I have one with 3 buddies from college, who all live in the Des Moines area.  I'm about 3 hours away, and it's mostly talking ISU/general sports/random funny things about other buddies of ours, or whatever.

What I found hilarious (and really appreciate) is that the 3 of them have a separate one for coordinating things that they're doing in Des Moines (they all get together with wives and kids 2-3xs per month).  It makes complete sense, since they have a regular circular conversation about plans that have nothing to do with me, and when I'm down there visiting, they stick to the larger one.

These 3 guys, and about 9 other dudes were part of one we had going for a guy's bachelor party a couple years back.  We planned the party through it, and then used it to coordinate it while we were commuting to the location (Nashville) and bar hopping down there.  Worked out well.  We also had a lot of fun on the drive home photoshopping the pics that were took on the trip.

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Guest Lobo

Other than sending a few photos of the little ones to family in Chicago, I cannot possibly conceive of a scenario where you'd want to initiate a group text.  If you're trying to coordinate with friends, just fucking stop and realize coordinating 10 adults at one time is futile and if they were adults---y'all would just pick a place and time and be there.  I've been in shithole third world countries with no phones and if we said to meet at a place at 10:00a, everybody was there at 10:00a no questions asked.  Phones just give people an excuse to be fucking idiots.  Don't text, don't use social media, unless it's with family and immediately mission critical.  If you lose somebody at a music festival, fuck 'em.  

What is the sudden fascination with interacting with other people?  

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I'm in a big group with aggy, 0u, Texas, sooner lite, and tech fans. Maybe 10 to 12 guys I know. I'll be at the lease in October and look at my silenced phone since I am recording and see 200 messages. But I'm not opening the app.

Is Texas winning or losing? Is army beating Oklahoma? Is tech losing to north Dakota state? Is aggy whipping UCLA or did UCLA embarrass aggy?

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