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Group chat has always been the killer social app. 6 years ago I convinced my browser friends group to adopt Telegram and since then we’ve all abandoned FB, Inst

Group chat has always been the killer social app. 6 years ago I convinced my browser friends group to adopt Telegram and since then we’ve all abandoned FB, Instagram, etc… We have a ton of different threads all with different topics: kids, food, gardening, exercise, pets, memes, and a bunch of serious topic threads as well. It’s been incredibly effective at keeping us connected and engaged as we’ve all moved across the country and grow in an apart physically. The take away is; what people want from social media is to be connected with their real friends. However that isn’t as engaging as a random feed, so the companies push people away from that.

deleted 1y ago
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foobarian 1y ago
I'm in a similar group but using Discord. It seems that lack of advertising or any kind of algo feed is the common feature. Who runs your Telegram server?
- robrtsql 1y ago
  Do you mean 'run' as in run the community in some sort of administration sense? Telegram cannot be self-hosted (unless I am misinformed..).
  - balamatom 1y ago
    Neither can Discord; its usage of "server" in particular is a weaponized misappropriation.
    - Aeolun 1y ago
      I mean, their internal terminology is still guild. I’m not sure they intended to call it server until their userbase did?
      - balamatom 1y ago
        Muddling the meaning of the term "server" either way.
- balamatom 1y ago
  >Who runs your Telegram server? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Security_Service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Security_Service
pookha 1y ago
I hate group chats (hate). It's a cliquey childish high-school cafeteria mode of communicating (thus why highschoolers use group chats). It's a clear step backwards and is representative of the covid-era stazi-like mentality people developed where they felt it was unsanity to share their views or life with the world at large (and maybe, given what we've learned about social media and nation-states, that's not without merit -- i.e the UK). Perfect world social media is a means of forming connections and expanding your little room(s).
- lukan 1y ago
  "Perfect world social media is a means of forming connections" What stops people from being part of X group chats? All a connection on their own?
- simonask 1y ago
  Is it - hear me out - possible that you are overthinking this? People tend to use group chats for coordination and quick banter with people they already know. Not as an alternative to the phpBB boards of old.
  - photonthug 1y ago
    Eh, I think the parent has a point. You underline it yourself when you say “people they already know”. The internet didn’t always involve a choice between “talk to people I know” vs “bravely/foolishly taking on the vitriol of a wild horde of angry delusional maniacs”, but now we’ve lost almost all of the space in between those extremes. People like hacker news exactly because it’s the rare place that’s still in the middle *(sometimes, on some topics, for now)
    - Aeolun 1y ago
      There’s a lot of people on hackernews with whom I cannot agree on a great many important things. Happily, none of them appear to be technical, so it works out fine.
  - balamatom 1y ago
wintermutestwin 1y ago
I guess group chat would be fine if all your friends are friends of each other. High School and college ages maybe, but as an older adult, I have so many different groups of people that I interact with that it would be obnoxious to deal with. I also find that there are certain people in group chats who are lonely and spam crap.
- sbarre 1y ago
  You can have many group chats though? I do that in Signal, I have group chats with different circles of friends ,and we also regularly create short-lived purpose-built chats for events or other things... It's a bit more friction perhaps but in the end it works well and we've been doing it for years.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

foobarian 1y ago

I'm in a similar group but using Discord. It seems that lack of advertising or any kind of algo feed is the common feature. Who runs your Telegram server?

robrtsql 1y ago
Do you mean 'run' as in run the community in some sort of administration sense? Telegram cannot be self-hosted (unless I am misinformed..).
- balamatom 1y ago
  Neither can Discord; its usage of "server" in particular is a weaponized misappropriation.
  - Aeolun 1y ago
    I mean, their internal terminology is still guild. I’m not sure they intended to call it server until their userbase did?
    - balamatom 1y ago
      Muddling the meaning of the term "server" either way.
balamatom 1y ago
>Who runs your Telegram server? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Security_Service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Security_Service

pookha 1y ago

I hate group chats (hate). It's a cliquey childish high-school cafeteria mode of communicating (thus why highschoolers use group chats). It's a clear step backwards and is representative of the covid-era stazi-like mentality people developed where they felt it was unsanity to share their views or life with the world at large (and maybe, given what we've learned about social media and nation-states, that's not without merit -- i.e the UK). Perfect world social media is a means of forming connections and expanding your little room(s).

lukan 1y ago
"Perfect world social media is a means of forming connections" What stops people from being part of X group chats? All a connection on their own?
simonask 1y ago
Is it - hear me out - possible that you are overthinking this? People tend to use group chats for coordination and quick banter with people they already know. Not as an alternative to the phpBB boards of old.
- photonthug 1y ago
  Eh, I think the parent has a point. You underline it yourself when you say “people they already know”. The internet didn’t always involve a choice between “talk to people I know” vs “bravely/foolishly taking on the vitriol of a wild horde of angry delusional maniacs”, but now we’ve lost almost all of the space in between those extremes. People like hacker news exactly because it’s the rare place that’s still in the middle *(sometimes, on some topics, for now)
  - Aeolun 1y ago
    There’s a lot of people on hackernews with whom I cannot agree on a great many important things. Happily, none of them appear to be technical, so it works out fine.
- balamatom 1y ago

wintermutestwin 1y ago

I guess group chat would be fine if all your friends are friends of each other. High School and college ages maybe, but as an older adult, I have so many different groups of people that I interact with that it would be obnoxious to deal with. I also find that there are certain people in group chats who are lonely and spam crap.

sbarre 1y ago
You can have many group chats though? I do that in Signal, I have group chats with different circles of friends ,and we also regularly create short-lived purpose-built chats for events or other things... It's a bit more friction perhaps but in the end it works well and we've been doing it for years.