Muting a busy family group should not feel like a personal insult

One person sends a photo, seven people reply, and suddenly a quiet afternoon has thirty notifications. Muting the group solves the noise but can create another problem: missing the message about dinner, an appointment, or someone needing help. Family chats mix everything together, from genuinely urgent updates to forwarded jokes. What boundaries work without turning notification settings into an argument? There must be a middle ground between being reachable every second and disappearing completely. Practical agreements seem more useful here than telling everyone to stop using their phones.