MESSAGING APPS SYNDROME

When senior citizens or retirees get together and form their own group on messaging apps like WhatsApp or Telegram, certain quirky behaviours come to the fore. Besides the presence of a compulsive greeter in the group with his daily "good morning" posts there is another player in the mix. He is the compulsive forwarder who makes it his bounden duty to gather all his messages from elsewhere and forward it to the group in a bunch. The bunch would consist of videos, audios, images, documents etc running into hundreds of MB's of data. For him the concept of pick & choose does not exist; he is happy to forward anything and everything and thinks he is doing everyone a favour. He is also not averse to forwarding posts one after the other, if not in a bunch. The compulsive forwarder is happily unaware that the large amount of data he pushes into the group religiously every day could actually be quite annoying to many of the group members. But slowly with passage of time he relents, his enthusiasm wanes and he is eventually replaced in that role by another more recent entrant to the group. It should, however, be kept in mind that presence of a compulsive forwarder in a senior citizens messaging group could be an exception rather than the rule. There is yet another category in the mix – he is the compulsive hoarder who prefers to retain media files indefinitely and seldom deletes them unless compelled to do so to free up storage space in the app. He can be safely relied upon to retrieve old images as well as old audio/video files if they are needed by any member of the group for any reason. One can go on categorizing users based on the nature of their posts like the person who prefers to use emojis extensively to emphasize a point of view, often unnecessarily or the person who loves to create beautiful cards to greet others on birthdays or wedding anniversaries - such traits can indeed be varied & many. ........................ Some of the seasoned seniors in the group have their own way of dealing with forwards. They patiently go through all forwards, make it a point to give a thumbs up to the ones they like and delete the rest quickly. Some of the other seniors have a different way of dealing with it. If the posts are from the compulsive forwarder they just delete the entire bunch not bothering to open a single post, fully aware of the possibility of something worthwhile being there. They then diligently read the remaining posts and offer their expert views on a few of their choice. Some of the seniors turn out to be disoriented in their approach and come up with comments on someone else’s post of long ago without giving any linking thread, making it difficult to comprehend what it is all about. Then there are some who do not read other’s posts and are totally focused on their own forwards to the extent that they more often than not repeat a recent post of someone else without being aware of the repetition. There are also those who remain silent forever and do not interact at all but still prefer to stay on, in the group. ........................ Some of the members of the group are quite creative. They not only forward a few useful or catchy posts but take time to post something of their own creation or experiences like images of beautiful moments captured by their cameras or their own composition of articles, stories, songs and poems. They invariably receive appreciation for their efforts from fellow group members. But it may so happen that at times a particular member carries things a bit too far by a bit too frequent self-promotion posts. For example, there is a casual singer in a group who makes it a point to post home-made recordings of his songs so frequently that many of the members of the group stop giving him the thumbs up. But quite surprisingly he remains undeterred and continues to nurse an inflated opinion of his own abilities to entertain others with his songs. ........................ Sometimes certain nostalgic events or topics of common interest catch the fancy of group members which leads to some healthy discussions and active exchange of ideas. At times, such exchanges do get a bit heated on account of differences in opinion and the administrator of the group may then have to step in to restore order. However, members generally abide by the rules of the group and desist from discussing or posting matters which are considered personal & private in nature or having political or religious overtones. ........................ Messaging groups are generally put to good use by diverse organizations like clubs, societies, enterprises, government departments & agencies etc to share information or give directions. Some such groups are also designed to allow only the administrators of the group to post essential information leaving no scope for other group members to respond or interact. There are also times when a messaging group is created for a temporary period only to share information about a specific event or a program and then terminated as soon as that event or program is over. All said and done, a messaging group can be a great way of communicating with friends and families or for planning and executing different types of events or programs. It rekindles interest in social work, stimulates the mind to learn new things or acquire new skills and more importantly it promotes unity and bonding.