At Wesleyan, there’s a wide variety of apps people use for communication. Whether it’s talking with your best friend or making a whole group, they’re invaluable for navigating social complexities on campus.
However, not every app is created equal; in fact, there are numerous differences. That’s why I’m going to be reviewing the messaging apps found at Wesleyan, looking at their pros and cons, and perhaps evaluating which one’s best for your needs. For now, I’m covering six of the most popular apps I’ve found here, all of which I’ve used: iMessage, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, GroupMe, and Discord. There are some others that I haven’t used and thus won’t cover, such as WeChat, Facebook Messenger, and Signal.
iMessage is the simplest of all the messaging apps. It’s also the most common, although it has limited features. You can message other people, send emojis and stickers, and play simple games. You can also create and get invited into groups, which have similar functionalities. The biggest advantage of iMessage is that it’s pre-downloaded on every iPhone, and all you have to do is touch tips to get contacts. The biggest disadvantage is that it has no customizability. There’s no username system as well, so it’s unreliable for large groups where you don’t know everyone’s name.
Rating: 5/10
Pros: Ease of use, simplicity
Cons: Limited features, no usernames
A short detour on read receipts: All of these apps, excluding Discord, have a unique feature called read receipts that works as both a pro and a con. With this, you can see exactly when a person reads your messages. This can be used to figure out your friend’s activity, but it can also promote obsessive behavior.
Next on the complexity scale is WhatsApp. It has a similar look and feel to iMessage, with a couple of extra features. Your phone number automatically syncs, so it’s easy to talk to your contacts from there. It has a unique solution to the username problem, where it sometimes displays the person’s name if they’re in your contacts, but it’s limited to just contacts. You get the same problem as iMessage, with a sea of unknown people whenever joining a new group chat. There are a couple of extra features (pinning messages, custom backgrounds, polls, GIFs, and stickers), but is it worth downloading a whole new app?
Rating: 7/10
Pros: Syncs with contacts, a couple of extra features
Cons: Imperfect usernames
Instagram has many other features, but we’ll just focus on the message parts for now. Unlike the first two apps, you’ll have to create an account and find other accounts. Most people put their name as their username, but if you don’t want to be randomly found, you can always set your account to private. Otherwise, there are lots of similarities to WhatsApp, with a similar set of basic features. There are unique interactions with the other parts of the app, such as easily sharing Instagram Reels, but this could very easily become a trap. It’s not fun having a group with people constantly sending reels.
Rating: 6/10
Pros: Easy to find others
Cons: Easier to get distracted
Snapchat is a mess. The name of the game is transparency, and it’s accomplished here to an unhealthy degree. Snapchat has disappearing messages (other apps also have this, but it’s on by default here), but you can choose to save specific messages if you really want to. Forget read receipts: in Snapchat, you can know when someone saves a message, screenshots the chat, or changes the chat settings. You can also figure out if someone’s lurking in the chat at the same time as you. There’s real-time location sharing via Snap Map, and if you’re really depraved, you can find out if a friend is talking to other people via Snapscore. The bonus features are similar to WhatsApp and Instagram, but there’s no real poll feature. In general, this is a perfect app for the high school friend group who are obsessed with each other, or the two crushes trying to play mind games, which makes it terrible for Wesleyan.
Rating: 2/10
Pros: Everything is tracked
Cons: Everything is tracked
GroupMe is a step back from the sheer terrors of Snapchat. By default, there are no read receipts for group chats (although it’s still enabled for individual chats). This allows for more relaxed talking, but it’s also easier for a group to descend into inactivity. Polls make their return, and there’s a complex events system where you can create custom events and invite your friends to them. This is also the app that’s the most connected to Wesleyan, with a Wesleyan-specific tab that shows all the events on campus and a directory of all students who use the app. The only real problem is that the user interface is very boring and not that customizable.
Rating: 8/10
Pros: Easy connection to Wesleyan groups
Cons: Not very customizable
Finally, we get to Discord. It’s the most complex of the messaging apps, but also my favorite. First, there are absolutely no read receipts for both group and individual chats. There are the same polls, pinned messages, stickers, and events from the previous apps, plus also a whole host of new stuff.
But first, we have to acknowledge that Discord has a relatively complicated and difficult user interface. There are no institutions or easy ways to search for users: for the most part, you’ll have to be directly invited to groups (called servers in Discord). However, these servers have the most customizability out of any messaging app. There are multiple channels to sort general chatting from more serious announcements, but you can also customize channels however you want. There’s also a roles system allowing people to show everything from their pronouns to their favorite colors. You can check a person’s mutual friends as well, which is a nice utility feature.
Finally, there’s a bunch of free add-ons, such as dice rollers (perfect for Dungeons & Dragons!) and music streaming bots. This is only scratching the surface of what you can do on Discord. It’s a complicated beast, but if you can figure it out, it’s the most effective messaging app out there.
Rating: 9/10
Pros: Very customizable, add-ons
Cons: A bit of a learning curve, the most annoying notification sound
So, what do you think? Is WhatsApp actually a horrible app? Is sending Instagram reels to that group chat the most important thing ever? Do I really have to download WeChat for part two?
Atharv Dimri is a member of the class of 2029 and can be reached at adimri@wesleyan.edu.
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