Every morning before she leaves for work, Rosie, a 28-year-old physiotherapist, chats with her three housemates. Sometimes they commiserate or celebrate over the weather or football results; sometimes one of them has good news about a job interview to share or lets off steam about their latest dating app disaster.
The friends moved out of the house they shared in Bristol last summer when they left college, and they live in different towns now, but their WhatsApp group, named after the road they lived on together, starts pinging with messages around 7.30am most days. “I live on my own now, and I miss having company,” says Rosie. “Some of the others have moved back in with their parents, which has its own challenges. We make each other laugh and keep each other sane. We don’t get to meet up much, but the group chat has kept our little gang alive.”
