WHATSUP WITH YOUR WHATSAPP GROUPS?

There was a time – which the current generation cannot imagine – when one remained isolated from friends, neighbours and even family if you didn’t live next door or nearby to them; when you found your home in darkness you either went through the futile throes of phoning the municipality (which has a penchant for not answering calls during the day) or the fire station (who answer promptly) at night to find out if you are the only one with a problem. You may know some people in your immediate neighbourhood and call them to see if you were in the same boat.

Since the advent of WhatsApp though communication groups have sprung up everywhere: street groups, suburbs, interest groups, school moms, pet lovers and the like. What a positive difference these can make! Our neighbourhood group is particularly useful during electricity or water outages – which occur often. We find out where to buy bulk water supplies, are given information about repairs to power lines after a storm and are alerted to security issues (which crop up every now and then). The group is also used to help people find the owners of stray pets, lost keys, ID cards and wallets.

During this week a missing Jack Russel was located: it had been stolen by dog thieves and sold. A Husky went missing and we were informed by a local security company that our overall crime rate has remained low – how comforting is that! Our group was informed that the frequent water outages result from the failure of the municipality to attend to the upgrades that should have been completed in 2017 and warned of possible industrial action by truckers and taxis ahead of the general elections next week. All very useful.

I was on the class parent group of one of my granddaughters a few years ago and couldn’t wait to leave it: questions about homework, time-tables, cake sales and sporting events (among the more useful ones) tended to be repeated ad nauseam despite answers having been provided until I began to wonder if people ever read properly. This is an astounding aspect of some community groups: the inanity of some of the questions posed and how few people bother to reply privately to questions no-one else really needs to know the answers to.

At the end of the day though, these community groups provide a valuable service by sharing information about what is happening; where to get what; who the best service providers are; as well as keeping the community informed about local fund-raising efforts, who has lemons to give away and so on.

I haven’t mentioned family groups … what a boon they are in these times of scattered family members.

HandsUp for WhatsApp!