GroupMe App Announces Shutdown, Student Organizations Follow
No Smartphone app has done more to increase communication, productivity, and data overage charges than GroupMe, the multi-person messaging app widely used among college students. However, in a recent press release, GroupMe announced that the application will soon shut down.
Following this announcement, faculty and staff of the Texas A&M Department of Student Activities made an inevitable decision: ceasing the existence of all student organizations.
“In light of the unfortunate shutdown of the GroupMe application, Texas A&M has decided to disband every club, organization, and officer board that has ever formed. This includes members who created passive-aggressive offshoot group-chats to talk about other members in the organization,” said the school wide email.
This is, in the eyes of the university, the only logical step. While, at some far-off time in human history, face-to-face communication used to suffice for organizations to run smoothly and generate output, access to messaging technology has taken the pressure off of personal interaction. Adjusted meeting times and expectations, new inside jokes, last-minute changes in the location of an event: all can be disseminated quickly, without regard for the fact that many members do not check their phone often enough to stay sufficiently updated.
Most students have come to realize that their organizations would crumble GroupMe, causing the decision of the Department of Student Activities’ decision to be widely supported.
“I don’t think my women’s organization could survive without GroupMe, so I guess it is better to disband now than fall apart later,” said Tabitha Pollard, Vice President of Aggie STARS. “We use meetings to talk vaguely about upcoming projects and mention new ideas, but we argue over and finalize the details in our GroupMe. That’s the easiest way!”
And now, with the ‘easiest way’ to communicate disappearing, student organizations have decided to follow suit. The effects of the app’s shutdown are not limited to organizations, however. Professors expect grades to take a significant hit, as students will no longer be able to repeatedly ask each other the exact same question about an assignment’s due date. Many fret over the self-confidence dip they will experience when their clever comments and timely GIF usage cannot be validated by “likes” from their peers.
While a small minority of students have protested, saying that real, human interaction and the use of effective emails could surely keep organizations running, the majority realize that GroupMe’s hold on the student body is simply too pervasive.
-Corpus Escort
He’s got the bro tanks, he’s got the neon snapback, and yeah, he’s riding his longboard by you in the dismount zone. Corpus Escort spent his entire freshman year thinking he was at A&M Corpus Christi, but somehow still made good enough grades there to transfer to College Station, where he remained living at Z Islander and throwing the raddest pool parties in town. Sometimes he writes, but mostly he just brings the brownies.