You may have had more than enough of the endless chain messages sent on the family WhatsApp group, but unfortunately you can’t leave because, well – they’re your blood.

Don’t worry, most of us who have the app installed on our mobiles are stuck in the same boat as you.

Since its launch and explosive growth over the years, WhatsApp has dramatically changed the cost and ease of mobile communication across the world. It’s cheaper to reach contacts not only locally, but internationally as well.

WhatsApp groups are an easy way to communicate with many people at once, to share notices, ask questions organise events or just have a good chat. But you know you’ve had enough when you can’t go a day without a ridiculous “share this with 10 other friends” chain message coming your way.

Drawing from our own experiences and observations, we rounded a list of the most common and often times annoying groups most of WhatsApp find ourselves trapped in. [It’s all just for fun].

Family Groups

Family groups are probably the most common of all WhatsApp groups you’ll find. They’re helpful in keeping in contact with family living far, organising gatherings, sharing memories and just keeping family bonds in tact.

But, it’s all fun and games until your mom has just learnt about #ThrowBackThursdays and decides to share an embarrassing photo of you as baby with your head in the toilet on the group chat – not cool.

Or how about when nobody can decide where the next family vacation should be and everyone spends days going back and forth about it.

Church Groups

Church groups are a good way for church-goers like myself to keep up to date with announcements, fellow members and to occasionally share uplifting messages.

But when 100 members in the group want to share a scripture or chain message, morning, noon and night, all at once and the other 100 respond with a resounding “Amen” every single time, it can get a bit much.

Work Groups

Let’s admit it, some people only tolerate their colleagues because they need or love their job enough to grit their teeth and bare being around them for plus/minus nine hours.

But things can get very awkward when the guy from the accounts department shares an offensive joke or sends an “is everyone asleep” message at midnight.

We don’t HAVE TO be best buddies after 5pm.

School announcements

Gone are the days when parents received messages from their kids’ school via a letter stuck in the child’s homework book (which sometimes never even reach its intended recipient, depending on the topic addressed).

Some schools have turned to WhatsApp to keep parents in the loop. It’s quicker, saves a few trees and guarantees they know about important parent and teacher evenings.

However, when parents want to take up every issue concerning their kids within the group, instead of directly calling or visiting the school, it can feel very crowded. More often than not, school groups are for announcements only, not grievances.

Social events

Social event groups are often organised by all the above groups (except for schools) as well as friends. Whether it’s a summer’s day braai, wedding or birthday party, it’s easy to speak to everyone involved at once.

The only time it’s not so fun is when arguments arise over who gets to do what, how much everyone should contribute and which venue should be chosen. Can we all just decide once and for all? Also, why must the group continue to exist months after the event has ended?

As mentioned, there’s a 99% chance you’re stuck in any of these groups, either because you’re close to the people involved or you need to stay updated with what’s happening.

Thankfully, we have the mute button at our disposal so we don’t have to have our mobiles beeping with new messages every few minutes.