Abstract:

WhatsApp groups have become deeply embedded in everyday social and institutional life, extending far beyond their original function as mobile messaging tools. Across education, workplaces, families, health settings, and civic arenas, WhatsApp groups increasingly operate as persistent environments that shape communication, collaboration, care, and collective action. Despite a rapidly growing body of empirical research, existing studies remain fragmented across disciplines and contexts, limiting cumulative theoretical understanding. This systematic literature review synthesizes findings from 36 peer-reviewed studies to conceptualize WhatsApp groups as socio-digital infrastructures—relational, routinized, and norm-governed systems that mediate social organization. Using a PRISMA-guided methodology, the review analyzes two thematic domains: learning and professional development, and organizational and task-oriented collaboration. The findings reveal consistent enabling effects, including enhanced coordination, access, and continuity of interaction, alongside recurring tensions related to workload, emotional labor, surveillance, governance failures, and unequal participation. By integrating socio-technical systems theory, communities of practice, and perspectives on power and governance, this review advances a cross-contextual framework that explains both the benefits and risks of WhatsApp group embeddedness. The study contributes theoretically by reframing WhatsApp groups as infrastructures rather than tools, empirically by mapping patterns across domains, and practically by identifying governance and design challenges for future research and policy.

Keywords:

WhatsApp groups, socio-digital infrastructure, group communication, collaboration, digital governance.