Now, it comes through group chats. Viber, Messenger, Microsoft Teams. What used to be pinned to bulletin boards now floods into our phones: these pipelines of endless updates, flowing faster, louder, harder to ignore. They were meant to streamline communication, to keep everyone connected. But somehow, they have made life heavier, aggravating our already alarming technology-induced mental health issues.
Messages come at the unholiest of hours: in the middle of your lecture, during hospital rounds, while you’re in the bathroom trying to piss in peace, or worse, jolting you awake in the dead of the night when you are indulging in a rare deep sleep. And it’s always something: an announcement barely relevant, a document that could wait until morning, or a question someone could probably answer themselves (Google mo, gago. Or better yet, ask ChatGPT). Instead of convenience, the constant pings feel like chains, pulling you into conversations you never really asked to be a part of.
There’s a group chat for everything: family updates, the homeowners’ association planning yet another pointless meeting, colleagues arguing about politics, old friends debating who impregnated which celebrity, your batch trying to organize a dream trip abroad that will inevitably die at the polls. Like the old gossip circles, the messages spread. Every ding, every notification, piles up, and it becomes too much. Too much clutter, too much noise, too much of everything you wish you could ignore.
And then there are the generic messages, the high-tech version of verbal clichés: happy birthday, condolences, congratulations. They’re quick and easy. And dangerously empty. Instead of driving over to hug a friend who just lost a parent or sitting with someone whose world has fallen apart, we fire off a one-word “condolence” in the GC and pat ourselves on the back for being human. It is a hollow reassurance, a digital mirage of compassion, convincing us that we have done something meaningful when all we’ve really done is… nothing. And it doesn’t ease anyone’s pain. Not theirs, not ours. It only makes real connections harder to find.
These group chats were supposed to make everything easier. They were supposed to streamline conversations, keep us connected, and make announcements quick and efficiently. But instead of connection, they bring chaos: a never-ending stream of words, reminders, and updates that burrow into my chest like a stone, heavy and persistent.
Maybe we thought technology could fix the gaps in the way we talk to each other, but all it did was make the talking endless. There’s no pause, no quiet moments, no space for meaning anymore. Sometimes, I think it was simpler back when people said what they needed to say, finished their story, and, as that old coffee commercial once said, “Let’s sit and talk awhile.” Now, it’s reduced to “Post mo lang sa GC.” And somehow, it feels like we’ve lost more than we’ve gained.
And so, to keep our sanity intact, we hit the snooze button. The group chats are muted, their constant clamor reduced to silence, checked only during the rare moments of downtime when life allows us to breathe. We skip the happy birthdays, scroll past the condolences, and slowly, deliberately, become selective in what we read, and even more selective in what we respond to. It’s the only way to survive, the only way to push back against the relentless tide of noise that threatens to pull us under.
We leave the group chats that no longer matter, the ones cluttering our screens with nothing of value. The toxic ones? We ignore them entirely. And as for me, anything posted in the GC is automatically filed under the folder: “non-urgent.” Because if it’s truly important, if it needs my attention, my time, my care, then call me. And if you truly care, come find me. Sit with me. Talk to me. The way conversations used to be.
