“It's just a technological version of us”: Three‐generation family WhatsApp groups in Israel

• Published date: 01 October 2024
• Author: Galit Alkobi,Natalia Khvorostianov
• Date: 01 October 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.13023

RESEARCH

“It’s just a technological version of us”: Three-

generation family WhatsApp groups in Israel

Galit Alkobi | Natalia Khvorostianov

Communication Study Department, Ben

Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva,

Israel

Correspondence

Natalia Khvorostianov, Department of

Communication Studies, Ben-Gurion

University of the Negev, P.O.B. 653, Beer-

Sheva, Israel.

Email: nataliak@bgu.ac.il

Abstract

Objective: This qualitative study analyzes communication

practices, roles, and rules developed by family members

while participating in a three-generation WhatsApp family

group (WFG).

Background: Although instant messaging applications such

as WhatsApp have become increasingly popular with fam-

ilies worldwide, study findings of the digital family forma-

tion process, roles, rules, and family communication styles

have remained fragmented. Combining the rich familism

ideology with technological skills makes the Israel digital

family a good study case.

Method: We conducted 43 semistructured interviews with

WFG participants representing three generations of Jewish

Israeli families.

Results: All WFGs were organized in the form of a three-

generation family tree, including one or a couple of older

people in the core and a significant number of their youn-

ger relatives in the upper tree levels, where WFG member-

ship was used as a marker of family belonging. WFG

members played roles of kinkeepers, flickerers (rarely com-

menting participants), and silent warm experts. WFGs

used two rules for communication—problematic discourse

avoidance and exaggerated writing style—and two strate-

gies for enforcing those rules—temporarily excluding rule

breakers from the general group or ignoring messages of

offending participant(s).

Conclusion: Maintaining the WFG is not a single initiative

but a collective, well-coordinated endeavor of all family

generations, which helps to include grandparents in the

digital family, gives WFG participants a sense of family

belonging, and reproduces the image of the untroubled

family.

Implications: The research findings can be helpful for edu-

cators, family therapists, social workers, and social policy

Received: 5 June 2023 Revised: 30 October 2023 Accepted: 29 December 2023

DOI: 10.1111/fare.13023

© 2024 National Council on Family Relations.

Family Relations. 2024;73:2863–2881. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fare 2863

professionals. Moreover, the study’s results can benefit

families who want to open WhatsApp family groups.

KEYWORDS

digital family, family communication, instant message apps, Israel,

WhatsApp family groups

INTRODUCTION

Following Galvin (2006; Galvin et al., 2015) and Lim (2016), we define a family as a communi-

cative process whereby a relational culture is constantly created, sustained, re-created, and

redefined—both face-to-face and through the mediation of technology (Lim, 2016). According

to this approach, communication is a central process through which people construct and main-

tain themselves as a family through ongoing interactions and discursive practices through fam-

ily boundaries, roles, rules, narratives, and rituals defined and redefined. For instance, by

interacting together as a family, people differentiate themselves from nonfamily members,

thereby constructing a definition of themselves as “family.”To some extent, all families rely on

discourse to construct their identities and boundaries along with blood and law (Galvin

et al., 2015). Family members use communication strategies through which they maintain a

sense of family identity and ties, such as naming, discussing, narrating, and ritualizing. They

similarly use communication strategies to dissolve or reject family ties, such as labeling,

explaining, delegitimizing, and rejecting. Such actions must be reflected in deliberate, patterned

behavior over time (Galvin, 2006).

The advancement in broadband communication technologies offers a great variety of

devices and applications that have been used to keep families whole. For instance, WhatsApp,

an instant messaging (IM) service owned by Meta has been adopted by many families as a com-

munication tool (Rego, 2021; Taipale, 2019). Its use is prevalent in Brazil, Germany, India,

Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Russia, Turkey, and other countries. As of

September 2022, WhatsApp had over 2.4 billion users globally (Iqbal, 2024), outpacing instant

messengers like iMessage, WeChat, Telegram, Viber, LINE, Signal, and others. Malaysian

(Kamal et al., 2014), Italian, Slovenian (Taipale, 2019), Finnish (Hänninen et al., 2021;

Taipale, 2019), Spanish (Rosales & Fern

andez-Ardèvol, 2016) and Swedish (Eklund &

Sadowski, 2023) users, older and younger, reported that their participation in a WhatsApp fam-

ily group helped them to bridge distances, reconnect, and maintain intergenerational closeness,

and to refresh and reactivate family relationships. In this paper, we present the Israeli Jewish

family members’experiences and practices of maintaining a three-generation WhatsApp family

group (WFG) by defining boundaries, using communication rules, and assigning roles.

BACKGROUND

IM affordances for families

Digital technologies have expanded communication opportunities for families who use them.

Many of their affordances, possibilities offered by technologies and demand and interpreted by

users (Colom, 2022), can be used in a family context. For example, its organization into closed

groups allows privacy (Taipale, 2019). End-to-end encryption makes it impossible for anyone

other than the sender and receiver to read or access. In addition, because IM is an indirect

medium, users can engage in intimate discourse without enduring the embarrassment and anxi-

ety of face-to-face and voice discussions of complex topics (Karapanos et al., 2016).

2864 FAMILY RELATIONS