Whatsapp is the worst for eroding the work-life divide....
Somehow I'm now a member of well over 20 Whatsapp Groups... about a third of them are related to my main job, but I keep getting added to various social groups too, increasingly linked to events, although they are not so bad as they end and you can leave, it's the permanent social groups I dread being added to...
I guess like many of us digital citizens I have accumulated a lot of unwanted digital baggage over the last decade!
There can be a rather curious social dynamics of putting people on WhatsApp groups. At first glance, such groups might seem harmless enough - a convenient or straightforward method of making communal plans, or keeping old friendship groups alive.
But beneath lies a culture of assumed participation and possible accusations of rudeness towards those who take less of an active part in the group.
And then there is work-creep - Work whatsapp groups invade your personal space like nothing else.... and even if you're not expected to participate on your days off, those message pings infiltrate your consciousness on your days off and that is annoying!
A couple of easy solutions...
I'm personally up for joining those voices asking for work phones, I had one in my other job I just quit, makes it much easier to switch off from work, and keep personal and work like separated.
Meta could also easily introduce an option to default to asking user permission before they can be added to any group. This would go some way to reducing social pressure to take part.
I mean it is an irritation when all of a sudden I'm 'in' a group I never asked to be in.
Final thoughts...
I'm surprised this has never occurred to me before: how irritating it is for someone to add me to a group I don't want to be added to, it is just plain wrong!
Your phone number gets shared as well with everyone in the group - there's no end of groups you could be signed up to!
I'm not in the work WhatsApp group, they knew not to ask me.
I have been thinking about going back to dumb phone, especially as I can never get the data to work on mine when I'm outside the house. I'll go back to tearing the page I need out of an A-Z!
It is annoying isn't it that sharing yr number, although possibly there is a privacy option>? I hate that we use WA for work, I've got more work groups than social groups, not that I'm that interested in the later anyways!
Good point about requiring permission to be added. I didn't know that wasn't needed.
I'm lucky that most things are separated into different platforms: Slack for work, Whatsapp for friends and family, Telegram and Discord for crypto groups.
Although I used to be in a Whatsapp group for work which was used for both general chat and announcements of urgent jobs. That was hell - I couldn't mute it.
I totally agree that having the choice to ask for permission before being added to groups would ease some of this stress.
But most of the groups allow us to leave at any point of time. The choice is in our hand, if we really part of them or not. I have few groups, but i never check, there is a he'll lot of unread messages from each group.
Hmm yes fair point, but it would just be a nice courtesy to be asked to join!