Transparency Item: The Perspectives section of the Graphic is comprised of articles based on opinion. This is the opinion and perspective of the writer.
Before I left for college my freshman year, I anticipated missing my family.
I felt especially upset because my parents were becoming empty nesters. My brother was about to start his junior year of college, and I was painfully aware that he may have an internship next summer far away from home.
This was quite possibly the very last time all four of us would live together in the house I grew up in.
I also knew that the number of times I would see my brother was about to dramatically decrease. If one of us came home for a weekend, the other would not be there.
Our spring breaks do not line up at the same time, and he only gets a few days off for Thanksgiving while I get the full week.
I went from an entire childhood of seeing my brother multiple times a day, sharing a school and a home, to now seeing him on holidays.
Many college students experience the same distress I have.
Distancing from family units is a very common experience. This not only leads to loneliness for the student, but it can also cause distress to the family that the student has left behind, according to Daytona Children’s Hospital.
Many parents who send a student to college feel less needed and disconnected from their child. Additionally, younger siblings can be prone to feel grief over the loss of close sibling relationships, according to Daytona Children’s Hospital.
During these abrupt periods of family separation, family group chats can be a useful tool for maintaining consistent communication.
For example, within the last week, my family group chat shared my brother signing his internship contract, a print edition of the Graphic sent to my parents and photos of my brother as a baby to celebrate his twenty-first birthday.
Although I would have eventually found out about my brother’s internship from a phone call, the group chat allowed me to celebrate this news as a whole family and in a timely manner.
A group chat replicates the way we used to share news when we all lived together such as around the dinner table or while greeting someone at the doorway.
The connections family group chats maintain are especially relevant on different chat mediums, such as Instagram.
In addition to a family group chat on iMessage, my family has an Instagram direct messaging group chat where we share relatable posts.
This allows for sharing of additional forms of content, rather than solely life announcements. My family can send posts that align with our family culture and values, helping maintain our feeling of connectedness.
Family group chats can also be used for non-immediate family. Consistent contact with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins can be difficult during college.
In my experience, large family group chats containing non-immediate family members are best for sharing photos of vacations, holidays and events.
This works as a makeshift, private social media platform; family members keep up with each other’s major life events in an easy way.
For example, when I scroll through a cousin’s graduation photos with thousands of other posts in my Instagram feed, I forget it quickly. However, a cousin sharing this news via a group chat increases my feelings of belonging and camaraderie within my family.
This method is also beneficial because it decreases common negative effects of mainstream social media such as comparison and jealousy. Family members are more likely to share both positive and negative life events so they can respond to personal or family problems, according to the National Library of Medicine.
Group chats have provided me with a more convenient method of communication, especially as a college student.
In my experience, it is difficult to schedule phone calls with extended family members. Texting, especially in group chat form, has significantly decreased the inconveniences and time sinks of phone calls and time zone differences.
Instead of having separate phone calls with individual family members, a simple photo and text description can be sent to multiple family members in seconds.
Group chats can be a convenient innovation to maintain frequent communication with immediate and extended family. This can be especially true for college students who experience a frequent lack of contact with family.
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Contact Caitlin Murray via email: caitlin.murray@pepperdine.edu or by Instagram: @caitlin_murray36
