Nowadays, it’s commonplace to be included in at least one group chat made up of family, friends, coworkers, or just a group where two people take over and seem to forget that other people are there entirely: This is the case for a group of five college friends, three of which haven’t participated in the group chat in weeks.
“It’s weird,” said Melissa, one of the unlucky three who can’t go pee without coming back to a minimum of 57 new texts. “There’s no way Sam and Amy don’t know that we’re there, but they seem to have forgotten that they can just each other directly and leave us the fuck out of it.”
“I actually tried to participate once a few weeks ago and they kind of just blew past me and kept talking to each other,” said another non-active participant while scrolling quickly through a sea of messages that really read like a private conversation. “It’s at the point where I’m considering telling them to just take us off the group, and maybe the friendship altogether.”
While muting a group chat is always an option, it can still be stressful for a person to return to their phone and find hundreds of unread messages. The good news is that according to Silicon Valley engineer Matt Shannon, a solution is in the works.
“We’re developing a tool that will block all group chats, cause there’s really no other way to solve this,” he said. “Have you seen some of the memes they think are worth sending? We just have to eliminate them from our lives. I have three group chats myself I’m dying to get out of.”
Neither Sam or Amy could be reached for comment, and the three non-active participants have now started their own separate group chat solely to talk shit about them.
