The more the merrier? The irrationality behind group chats
Just over a year ago, I packed up (many) suitcases and relocated to the US. One of my greatest fears in moving was being out of touch with family and close friends. Thankfully, I was born in the 21st century, and with group chats, we no longer have to disconnect due to geographical gaps. Even when living within the same area, group chats provide the option to broadcast daily updates to everyone you’re close to all at once, minimizing the effort required to stay connected. In the lack of friction, everyone is just one click away.
As emojis replace hugs and group chats become the new town squares, the age-old structure of human interactions has shifted so that we can hold on to connections that would have waned in the past. But although the form of communication has changed, the biases that tend to seep into our communication have not—in fact, they might be more magnified than ever before.
Let’s take a closer look at how group chats are both formed and broken to better grasp exactly how our irrationality continues to persist in this virtual sphere.
XXX has joined the group
Being accepted into a community was historically a matter of birth, location, or affiliation, but now it’s also a matter of deliberate decision. The group chat-creating process includes naming the group, as well as adding members, a description, and sometimes even a photo. Many of these attributes were never prerequisites for community evolution before—hence we are newbies.
Since we are required to specifically identify group members, there are no ambiguities about who is or isn’t part of a community. To gain official inclusion, one must be added to the group chat. Due to this social condition, parents have admitted to feeling pressured into purchasing smartphones for their young children so that they can join group chats, even if the parents initially intended to postpone usage. Under normative conformity pressure, many parents prefer to overlook their principles to ensure their kids remain unscathed socially.
The desire to belong is nothing new to us, but the virtual, impersonal representation of our social connections is. If you think about it, with the metadata of chats, you can easily draw a map of how intimate and frequent our connections are with each other. The shift from an abstract conception of one’s social network to a written (or typed-out) list has introduced a new goal in our lives: being a part of group chats. The feeling of prestige that follows the "you've been added" message serves as positive reinforcement we all long for. Hence, we are nudged towards expanding our social network.
On paper (or on group chat threads), it seems like what once separated us from unlocking our full potential in growing our number of social connections was merely the lack of technology to do so; however, according to anthropologist Robin Dunbar’s research, this is also a matter of human biology.
In the 1990s, Dunbar introduced a cognitive limit to the amount of stable social relationships a person can maintain, also known as “Dunbar’s number.” By comparing the sizes of primates’ brains and social groups, his estimation was approximately 150 individuals. Caleb Cohen, a Research Assistant at Haskins Laboratories, claims that although we have the technological ability to maintain connections that exceed Dunbar’s number, we lack the cognitive ability to do so. This creates a serious risk of over-networking.
Given that evolution requires time, and group chats have only existed for the past decade, we must depend on our actions to bridge the gap between the potential amount of connections we can have due to technology and the actual amount we can maintain due to our cognitive limitations. Within the realm of group chats, effective management is paramount, particularly in the context of leaving irrelevant groups. Rational thinkers could hypothetically govern their connections represented by group chats easily with no strings attached. Unfortunately, we humans are perilously irrational.
About the Author
Yael Mark
Yael Mark is a seasoned product manager with a true passion for behavioral economics/science. In her works, Yael is focusing on implementing applicable behavioral theories to influence user adoption, enhance retention and elevate engagement levels.
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