Everyone is in a WhatsApp group chat, some of us are in a few of them and we all have a different role to play.
Maybe you’re the group leader, the one who keeps team morale going, the glue that holds everyone else together. Or you’re the person who never responds to any of the messages but turns up to all the events. Maybe you’re the comedian of your chat, the one who sends the funniest memes before anyone else.
Regardless of who you are, WhatsApp group chats are well and good, until they just aren’t. It’s all fun and games until you wake up to more than 100 messages in the morning. The jokes that used to make you laugh become annoying. You find yourself muting the chat entirely and becoming the ghost of the group.
You’re ready to leave, but you know when you do, everyone will find out about it...
Well, not for much longer. WhatsApp has announced that you’ll soon be able to exit group chats without notifying others. Finally, no more pass agg – ‘Habiba has left the chat’ and no more worrying what others are saying about you in the wake of your departure.
Currently, when you leave a WhatsApp group, the very public nature of that everyone in the group can feel a little awkward. But after this update, you’ll be able to leave a group with only the group admin receiving a notification.
(Also super handy for when you’ve been added to a group without being asked or you’re still in one that’s long since tailed off – we’re looking at you hen do, baby announcement, and group holiday threads).
The new updates are being classified as “privacy features” by WhatsApp’s owner Meta – and include others measures that Mark Zuckerberg says will improve security for users.
The messaging app will also introduce the “view once”, which that was made popular by Snapchat. This means you can opt for images you share to messages automatically deleting once they’ve been seen, and for screenshots to be disabled on these pictures.
And a further update will let you limit who can see when you are online, only showing “last seen” to close contacts, not – for example – prospective love interests or total strangers from all those group chats you’re planning to exit!
These features are currently being trialled but will be available to users “soon,” the company says. They can’t come soon enough for some of us!