“Let’s go bowling.”
Throughout the most important time in human history for any college student — the 2000s — billions of group chats have been created. Some of these messaging chains spawn out of friendships and last for eternity, while others are only developed to overcome the obstacles of communication in a group project.
No matter how a group chat comes together, one characteristic defines all texting groups: plans rarely make it out of the group chat.
Why?
First, in an impersonal situation like a group chat, we simply lack the emotional communication to affirm an idea in a relevant way.
“In a group chat, you lose all the nonverbals,” Jeff Groeling, department chair and professor of communication, said. “Emojis help with some of that, but with these nonverbals you can see somebody's facial expressions when something you say doesn’t sit well with them, and then you can respond to that. You can’t do that in a group chat.”
These nonverbals that Groeling discusses are exactly what is required to get the ball rolling on an idea. Take the opening paragraph of this article for example.
Our human brains read right past “let’s go bowling” because there is no emotional connection to it. Does it make anyone any more or less likely to go bowling?
However, if someone ran up to a table of friends screaming and jumping, “LET’S GO BOWLING!” that group is probably going to at least consider the prospect of rolling a heavy ball at white pins. There is a level of emotional communication that is only observable outside a text chain — even with emojis in consideration. If someone else is explicitly excited, then we are much more likely to take notice.
Second, even if everyone is excited about the prospect of bowling, it may still get dropped. There is, after all, a lot of planning involved with bowling.
When are we going? How much is this going to cost? Who’s driving? How long are we staying? Who knows how to bowl? Are we eating before, during or after? Who should we invite?
Jakob Miller, associate professor of political science, condenses this problem wonderfully.
“Our brains are lazy,” Miller said.
Even when planning the most simple events, like bowling, we are paralyzed by choice. We want someone else to make the decisions for us.
What the group needs is an executive — something Alexander Hamilton knows all about.
Hamilton’s Federalist 70, explains that the only way to have a good republic is to provide it with a single person responsible for executing the wishes of the people. A king is an absolute version of this, while our president is a tamer version.
Hamilton’s “energetic executive,” not only explains why monarchies are popular, but it provides insight into why groups — especially large ones — are bad at taking action.
It’s unlikely that a random collection of people are arbitrarily going to vote for an executive, and divinely inspired kingship is probably not going to be popular in the American variety of group chats. As a result group chats are left leaderless and paralyzed by choice.
In personal groups, leaders emerge based on things like vocality, perceived smarts and even height, Miller said.
In the impersonal setting of a group chat, it is harder to tell who is the tallest in the group so an executive leader takes a little longer to emerge — if ever.
It is highly unlikely any group chat is going to elect a president, and no king will be divinely appointed. Emojis are probably never going to be good enough at conveying nonverbal emotion either.
So how do we ensure the plans actually make it out of the group chat?
There is no way to ensure this. Instead, just make plans in person. It is better that way.
