I remember last year around this time, I joined the Williams Class of 2023 Groupme. I had never heard of Groupme before, but it seemed like all college students used it. There were maybe 300 or so people in the group, the number constantly ebbing and flowing with Amherst converts and sellouts. A core group of a dozen or so people routinely talked amongst themselves, with their daily chitter-chatter broken up periodically by someone asking a general question and an upperclassman answering. I think I spoke up maybe twice in total during the three months prior to seeing everyone on campus, and that was two more than the average Groupme-er.
It’s interesting to note a similar, but more extreme, pattern emerging in the 2024 chat (which I snuck into for curiosity). The difference in the volume of texts / person is significantly more lopsided. This might be unique to Williams because there’s one dude who’s made it his mission to ask how everyone’s day been every single day, but I only recognize four or five regular participants (read: repliers of said dude’s questions). But less people might be talking because they’re unsure of when they’ll see everyone else on campus? They might not feel as committed to Williams / this particular year ‘s freshman if they defer. Alternatively, if people can’t see each other face-to-face for a while, you can’t rely on “oh, people will forget about the dumb things I texted once we’re on campus” anymore which might make people hesitant to put themselves out there. But on the other hand, I feel like with quarantine boredom (especially for high school seniors), wouldn’t they have nothing else to do than text each other? Who knows, these are only hypotheses from an old soon-to-be-sophomore.