Does anyone else feel like social media is ruining real friendships?

[PetsNPaws]

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I’ve noticed that some of my friendships have changed since everything’s moved online — group chats, Instagram stories, Facebook updates, all that. It’s like people don’t actually talk anymore. We just react to each other’s posts and call it “keeping in touch.”
One of my closest friends barely messages me now, but she’ll “like” my photos or comment on something random, and somehow that’s supposed to count as staying connected. I miss proper chats and seeing people face to face, not just scrolling through their lives online.
It’s weird because social media was supposed to help us stay in touch, but I feel like it’s made things more distant in a way.

100%. Younger pp seem to think it's intrusive to phone. No one ever calls just for a chat. One of the things I liked about lockdown was that pp actually phoned to just talk as we couldn't meet. I've been a couple of real life groups that have just been destroyed as pp only want to chat on whatsapp.

I hate it.

I've noticed that phoned distract us so much, that we're even too distracted to contact our friends on our phones! There's some shiny thing to look at, scroll through etc.

It's just the way things have gone isn't it.

@Appalonia what I've noticed is that while the younger generation tend to be more vocal about not phoning - pun not intended😂 - that has led to all generations feeling able to say that they hate talking on the phone. If they're that kind of person.

Just stop posting online then they can’t know about your life unless they contact you

It's changed things but not for the worse, for me anyway. I use whatsapp groups all the time to arrange meet-ups, some of them also for chats in between to keep up with the day to day things. I use messenger and whatsapp to have long detailed chats with some of my friends that I would have phoned in the old days but it's less disruptive, I can be chatting with my friend who lives 50 miles away and I can't see regularly on messenger while sitting with DH who is watching TV whereas before I'd have had to go to a different room. Or on train journeys where I don't want to be talking on front of everyone.

FB I mainly only use to follow organisations nowadays but do still have friends and acquaintances who post holiday photos etc (I'm over 50, I accept it's a bit of an age thing) and it's nice to see what they are up to and comment, I would have lost touch with some of them long ago in the old days. Also the following organisations thing has led me to all sorts of new hobbies and interests, I joined a choir that advertised on FB, I do several volunteering things that I'd seen there, also a local society related to one of my interests. Overall it has been a positive for me.

Interesting topic. I’d say for me, it’s facilitated keeping ‘in touch’ with friends that I’m not as close with. So if it weren’t for their updates, I’d have no idea what was going on with their lives as we’d see each other at best twice a year. So with SM I feel a bit more in touch with what’s going on in their lives, and can react to a post without the need for a chat every time, as we aren’t that close.

In terms of my close friends, SM is an addition. We see each other and interact across the different platforms we share with each other.

This. I expect my so-called friends I used to have wouldn't even think of getting in touch if i disappeared from fb. I know this is going to make people think, omg she must be awful, but I'm always the one to suggest meeting to my longest known friends and yet never hear back. I guess we've just grown apart and looking back it was when I had DC that seemed to finish it off. I can even remember once they knocked on my door when I lived alone to get me to come out. That would never happen now.
I do feel lonely as a result as I have no real friends any more. I hate social media.. it's not social media, it's unsocial media!

Exactly.
I agree with all of this.