Seniors socializing via their own platform has created problems. Photo courtesy of reporter Brielle Machado.
Seniors at San Luis Obispo High School are currently compacted into one massive group chat known as the senior group chat.
Its primary purpose is to inform the eldest class of senior-related school events, such as ditch days and graduation events.
However, the senior group chat exists as a jumbled and inefficient mess that irritates more than it aids.
“Sometimes when people are making jokes it gets annoying, spammy,” said senior Lauren Weyel.
The chat often features an initial message followed by brief periods of an extreme influx of texts, and then long stretches of silence. The sheer volume of texts make it difficult for anyone to make the effort to read through and get the actual important information.
“I probably would not look at it, even if I was part of the group chat,” said senior Zac Oates.
This highlights another problem with the platform: it is not comprehensive. While a good number of seniors are added to the chat, there are many that have never been included. This undermines the informative goal of the group chat as it does not reach all seniors. Additionally, considering the number of students in the conversation that ignore messages, the groupchat is reduced to being even less effective.
Even without having all the seniors in the chat, the size of it isn’t conducive to effective communication.
“There’s way too many people,” said Oates. “There’s no way you can have a conversation.”
The groupchat does succeed to some extent at providing senior-specific information.
“I think it’s a good thing to get information out there… For the people that are in [the groupchat], it’s beneficial,” said senior group chat manager and senior Alek Naran.
However, SLOHS has many other methods of providing news, such as Tiger News Network or the Principal’s Newsletter, which is emailed to students weekly on Mondays. These are equally, if not more, effective and don’t have any of the cumbersome shortcomings that the senior chat features.
The next thing seniors should be ditching is their own group chat.
