AIBU to feel left out because I'm not on social media?

[PaxUniversalis]

I don't use social media. I'm not on FB, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp, etc.

I feel increasingly left out by friends and family and I think the reason for this is that I have refused to be on social media. 99% of my friends and family - young and old - are on social media and they keep in touch mainly via Facebook.

I'm probably old fashioned but my ways of communicating with people are: face to face, text messaging, email, telephone. In my 'old fashioned' mindset I believe that people have the tools to keep in touch with me: they have my landline number, my mobile number, my email address and my postal address. We all managed to keep in touch with friends and family before social media existed (I'm nearly 50 - just to put things into perspective).

None of my old friends ever get in touch with me spontaneously anymore, except to communicate important messages, like a death or a wedding or such like. I do try and keep in touch with them by sending emails. They do reply to my emails - actually 1 person is very good, she replies very quickly - but the majority of people only reply when it suits them - sometimes this is weeks later! Or they don't reply at all anymore. However, they all seem to be very active on FB and they send FB messages back and forth instantly to others (I know this because a friend of mine showed me the messages on her FB account).
So why do they keep in touch with others on FB but not with me via email? Perhaps I'm not that important to them?

One friend even announced that she was going to get married on FB. I only found out by accident a week or two before the wedding because I happened to be talking to a mutual friend who is on FB. Not good.

I'm talking about old friends here. Most of them know that I'm not on social media yet they never send me an email to say 'hello, how are you' from time to time. I'm always the one sending emails to them. Yes, they do reply - eventually - but It seems to be a one-way street here as I'm always the one doing the instigating.
Very frustrating as a lot of friends and family live hundreds of miles away (in the town where I grew up) so I don't see them a lot during the year.

I still prefer face to face or voice to voice (phone) contact with people if I'm honest. I know I could join social groups if I wanted face to face interaction but I'm a bit disappointed in my family and friends.
AIBU?

You could solve your problem by simply setting up a Facebook account.
I imagine people who enjoyed writing letters felt similar about the introduction of telephones.
Life moves on and if you don't keep up you get left behind.

that sounds amazing roussette - free phone calls across the world! I hadn't realised that.

Also interesting point about local facebook groups which I hadn't really thought about. Some are open pages, I expect, which would mean you can check out what events are coming up without being on facebook. But I don't think e-mail is completely defunct in this respect - eg Nextdoor local forums seem to use e-mail for instance (do they use facebook as well? You can certainly use them without being on fb).

falange yes indeed but have an android phone (I think Facetime is Apple?) but can 'see' people on WhatsApp if I want which I don't as I look a fright!

Oh yes, Roussette, I treasured the free phone calls when my DD1 was at university and on a year abroad.

It is like anything else. You use the parts that work for you. You can leave the rest.

WhatsApp and some other messenger services are how students keep in touch with both each other and their families these days. If I had refused to bother with it I would have been a much lesser part of my Dad's life than either she or I wanted after she went to uni.

sothatdidntwork I spoke to DC on the way to Everest in Nepal, a wonderful moment and free, it was honestly clearer than a call to London!

Pax that generation were known as the 'civic generation - going off topic a bit now but that is a really interesting comment; my parents are also from that generation and have an incredibly active and busy social life still (late 80s now) - they are always joining new clubs, getting involved in things, volunteering, really being active in the community - they still meet up regularly with friends from university - even though it is 60 years since they graduated.

Thank you for the info TheTree - I will look up that research. I have followed their lead in being a 'joiner' and community spirited - and neither they nor I use social media .

I’m thinking seriously of ditching my Facebook account due to the amount of snooping

The latest was a friend using my WiFi at home and Facebook then advertising me the product they had been research - different device and not mine - obscure item

Same as on mumsnet but more personal

I'm the same! I love it. So peaceful

In your situation I would be thinking, When I look back in 10 years would I regret not adapting and keeping in touch with so many people, or would I be proud that I stuck to my principles? In my case it would the former.

You can use social media how you want to. You don't have to be 'all or nothing'. Some people are 'friends' on FB with everyone they vaguely know or have met, running into the thousands of friends. They open their whole lives to FB. That's ok.

I don't want that, for me. I want a private life. I have about 130 'friends', and quite a lot of those are old friends from times gone by. I don't tend to post on FB, in fact I think I last posted about 9 months ago? Something like that. But I do flick through to see what other people are up to from time to time, and I might 'like' a post or picture.

On MN, I keep the same nickname, and have for 10 years. My policy is simple. I only post what I would be happy for anyone I know to read and know that I wrote. No cloak and dagger stuff. No threads about someone behind their back, no matter how juicy the gossip would be, etc. I'll never worry about someone knowing my nickname and have to get all my threads deleted.

WhatsApp, brilliant. Messages and pictures sent free over WiFi - that has allowed me to ditch my O2 contract and go for a £7.50 Giffgaff SIM. Any pictures can be sent by WhatsApp, so I don't get charged.

Go with social media, but do it your way 😊

Great advice Iougle !

Yes, all with local people and people they knew from school or from their neighbourhood or from the same town where they lived and grew up.

But you moved, so these long term ties aren't as strong, I really think you need to look more towards where you live now and making relationships with the people near you.
I don't think it a Facebook thing, I think it's more a distance thing, even if you had whatsapp, I'm not sure you would have anymore interaction from them.
You might with Facebook the odd comment or like, however I don't thin it's the meaningful relationship you are after.
Long distance relationships are hard.

So basically, OP, you want the same amount of contact people get via social media but only via your own approved methods which your friends may not find as easy to use. I think they would like to stay in contact with you but they don't want to repeat the same info twice (and have probably forgotten it by the time they get your email).

Your parents may have had a good social life but that wasn't because of the lack of social media at the time. Otherwise, no-one at all would be meeting up and going out now! You know that's not true!

You do come across as being a bit fixed in your thinking, OP. You are obviously not averse to technology because you use it for work and well enough to be successful as a freelancer. Yet you see it as killing off your face to face skills. I'd disagree - we may have kept in touch in the days before social media but not nearly as often as we keep in touch now.

Like you, I live hundred of miles from where I grew up and away from all my family. Our world covers a much bigger area and the communication methods have changed to cope with that.

I hope you find a method that brings you what you want OP, but I do think you'll have to be a little more flexible about it than you are now.

I think I'm more in touch with people because of social media.

Emails just seem so much more formal just like writing letters decades ago.

You are being ridiculous. There was a time (20 years ago?) when texting was the new thing. Now it's old-fashioned. You need to stop being stubborn and get WhatsApp or Facebook. No one is leaving you out intentionally, it's just how the world works these days.

I'm older than you and manage to have social media accounts without becoming addicted. And I still catch up with friends face to face - it's just that I make the arrangements to do so via a different medium to you.

Life will always keep moving on and you will become more and more isolated if you don't keep up.

There is a difference between Facebook and Facebook Messenger and then Whatsapp.

Two of those three are basically either like texting or sending really short emails. You dont need to do the third for the others to work. My social circle is global now based entire on social media. If I opted out of that then letters can take days and emails are a spraff when friends have to go into a city to find a computer to reply if the email they want to send is large. With whatsapp we can have a conversation.

My dad (in his 70s) uses Facebook Messenger and FaceTime to keep in touch with me in another country. He has only posted once on Facebook some years ago.

You do sound like someone bemoaning the end of the telegraph due to the rise of the telephone.

I joined Whatsapp for a short while but didn't find it useful and I also didn't like how it connected me to people I didn't want to be connected to, eg my ex-boss

eh? It suggests you can connect to anyone in your phone book. You don't have to talk to them on Whatsapp anymore than you have to text or call them. If you don't want to stay in touch then delete them from your phone.

I'm older than you, Pax. I somhow manage to be on FB and have a social life with - you know - real people I can actually see and even touch. The two aren't mutually exclusive. My dc are young adults and have incredibly busy social lives (I rarely see them), aided by the fact it is easy for them to keep in touch with each other. ds has recently returned from Universtiy and was easily able to arrange all sorts of social things with lots of people from school because of the fact they are all connected on social media. Indeed, when he is in the house, he continues to 'talk' to them on snapchat, on the X Box, on Instagram, and several Whatsapp groups (young people don't do FB much as their parents are all over it now .

As someone else said, you managed to cope with starting using e-mails and then texts - none of which were around when we were growing up / young, so I don't see why you are now lumping "Social media" together as some horror never to be embraced.

OP. I am about your age and also introverted which is why I find Facebook such a joy. I can stay connected to friends and family all over the world without the energy drain of having to make phone calls or go out when I feel I can't face it. It also means when we do meet up there is no big 'tell me what's going on with you' catch up. I know about the house move/divorce/new grandchild etc. And will normally have acknowledged it with some sort of private message (or even an actual card or bunch of flowers) when it happened. My introversion also makes me very uncomfortable ringing people as I am scared I might be intruding on them so before FB I would lose touch with people. Nowadays I can post any news and people will contact me or not in their own time. I love it.

I also love Whatsapp. I am on my own most of the time and if I am lonely or at a loose end I can post on my local friends group 'is anyone free for pizza/coffee/drinks' and I invariably get at least one taker very quickly again without feeling I am intruding or being a nuisance to anyone who,is busy or not interested. I can honestly say that these things have improved my face to face social life immeasurably.

Bloody hell op, you're the same age as me (probably, I'm 49 next week) and you are just so different in outlook to me!

Can I suggest a challenge? As it's New Year and all that. Sign up to Facebook and stick at it for the WHOLE OF January.

See what it brings you. Connect with your friends and family. Look at their photos and their daily updates. Search for local events (i find load of stuff on FB which I would have no idea was going on otherwise). Find local groups which interest you and join them online. Create an event and invite your family and friends - it may be for your 50th birthday? You could organise a party and invite people to come.

Just give it a go, give it one month but promise you go on it every day.

Then see how you feel.

What do I get from FB? I stay in touch with my DD1 (via messenger as well) who is away at uni, I stay in touch with my sisters and see photos, I find local events, I am in various pets groups and also our village has a group which means all the local things get sorted on there.

It's a really great way of getting to know local people. Through FB I have got to know more people here than I would have otherwise.

A lot of my job is internet-based so I'm already staring at computer screens most of my work day. I also work from home as a freelancer - which can feel a bit lonely sometimes if I'm honest - so I really do crave face to face interaction with people and the last thing I want to do is spend more time online in my free time.

I'm the same age as you and have the same job.

I find that being on FB and Whatsapp is a way to connect with my friends so we can arrange to get together.

I've even introduced my US and UK friends to each other via FB, and we have since all met up in both London and Boston.

You can use FB to build relationships. It's up to you.

I check Facebook before meeting up with a crowd and make a mental note of things to chat about. How was Mexico? You've got a new kitten? Jake is in a football team now? Your mum is awfully proud of that new conservatory isn't she?

I had a fab New Year night out. All arranged via a WhatsApp group, photos and videos of the evening shared on the same chat and no doubt tomorrow there will be thanks to the host and maybe a few more photos shared, then it is retired.

Good night was had. God knows how I'm managing to type a coherent post.

OP won't come back to the thread now until we all call her individually for a personalised Happy New Year chat.

OP just think of whatsapp, FB messenger as a different way to text or email. I am not on FB or insta. I use whatsapp and am in several groups for family, hobbies, work. It means one text and is really sociable when a group swaps ideas or just has a bit of banter. It makes life easier instead of having to ring/text each person.

Oh yeah frees photo/video sharing AND calls on whatsapp. I love it.

I find the level of hostility displayed by some on here to social media refuseniks quite interesting. Slightly smacks of people who have swallowed a pitch and don’t want to hear it questioned.
Quite a lot of interesting stuff coming out recently about how the bosses of the social media and other tech companies limit not just their kids but their own use of their product - also how they’ve been designed deliberately to be compulsive. On the whole, I think they’re likely to make my life worse, not better, and I haven’t read anything here that suggests otherwise.