Real Talk

The Family Group Chat: Sweet, Toxic, or Both?

by Kevyn Gohu
June 19, 2025

Does a family group chat help? Do they make things worse? Or, is it a bit of both?

Today’s families are always finding new ways to connect. Some still connect with landline phones, while others have discovered the magic of group chats. While group chats have been around for a while and were often used for school group work, some of us now use them to keep in contact with other family members. Sometimes, it’s a room where we plan get-togethers. Other times, the family group chat is also where we see so much passive-aggressiveness that we sometimes can’t believe we have our own, real-life Reddit story soap opera.

So, is it worth keeping the family group chat? Here’s what we think.

Does a family group chat help? Do they make things worse? Or, is it a bit of both?

It keeps everyone connected

The fun part about having a family group chat is that we get to bond with family members who aren’t always easy to get hold of physically. Whether it’s because of work or just life’s circumstances, these digital pocket spaces make sure everyone in the group stays updated with the latest happenings that aren’t usually covered by nationwide media. Sometimes, families even share the news there. Just in case the algorithm doesn’t make the news visible to others.

Unfortunately, boundaries and lines are blurred

Everyone has their own lives, but Filipino families have a bad habit of either overstepping them or playing the technicalities. It becomes especially difficult to maintain those boundaries in a family group chat: not only is there an audience, but there are receipts. People can just screenshot a conversation and keep it in the gallery for leverage (if that kind of malice is involved). After all, who wouldn’t want that kind of leverage to get what they want?

File sharing is a lot easier with a family group chat

Despite the usual 25MB file limit, family group chats make it easier to share files. And usually, the files families share are photos from the most recent get-together. Those photos usually range from formal family pictures to candid shots of the most recent buffet mishap. For the kids still in school, this is also the place where they can share the surveys that they’re required to submit to class for a grade. It’s usually an easy five to ten respondents, depending on the criteria.

We’re more prone to “groupthink”

Groupthink, a term coined by psychologist Irving Janis, usually happens when everyone in a group makes the same decision that one person made. In a way, it’s mentally and psychologically efficient: we don’t have to break our brains over hard decisions, and in a way, we feel we’re not as accountable for that decision. It’s like one step below becoming a hive mind.

However, that can be problematic when making big family decisions involving inheritance, taxes, funeral arrangements, etc. Everyone has their own idea of how those things could go, and it can be difficult to communicate the problems of certain decisions when everyone just agrees. Especially in Filipino family culture, it’s quite damning to be the one who says “no” or points out the issues.

Easy reminders of everybody’s birthdays and holidays

Let’s be honest: we don’t remember all our family members’ birthdays. The only ones we’ll most likely remember are those of our kids and our spouses. So, in the family chat, seeing a notification pop with a “happy birthday” is an inconspicuous reminder that it’s one of our relatives’ birthdays. Besides, they also sometimes want to hold a party, so they send the guest list there that we just copy, add our names there, and paste back into the family group chat.

Notification floods!

Unfortunately, being in the family group chat means getting notifications — even if they’re not meant for us. So when everyone’s chatting and we’re trying to get a good night’s sleep, that ringing sound’s going to annoy us to no end. And unless notifications can be customized for certain chat groups, the group chats we use for work are most likely the same! So, sometimes, we’ll get spikes of anxiety whenever we hear it ring because the sound is associated with the idea that our office is hunting us down for some godforsaken reason.

The State Of A Family Group Chat Depends On The Family

Like all technology, a family group chat is a tool, so whether it’s sweet, toxic, or both is highly dependent on the family that uses it. On some days, they’re useful. Other days, they’re the most horrible thing to be a part of. But it only has one job: to connect people. It’s still our responsibility to dictate whether or not the family group chat is useful and sweet to have or just needless toxicity.