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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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

301 replies

PaxUniversalis · 31/12/2017 12:03

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?

OP posts:
sothatdidntwork · 03/01/2018 09:43

If you unfollow a fb account though, the account holder may notice that you don't do any 'likes' - which does sometimes seem to cause discord?

As for Whatsapp and facebook messenger - can other users tell if you're 'online' and answering other people, or can you change your settings? That would put me off I think - though I realise it doesn't bother everyone.

Groupchats sounds incredibly convenient to make arrangements (though e-mail 'reply all' is a reasonable substitute even if not as 'instant'?), but do seem to have pros and cons in other respects (a few mn threads on this in the past!). So all in all I will stay out of it in my bubble, but I can see that I will as a result not be completely up to date on things.

Local facebook pages you can generally see without ever signing up, but of course you can't get alerts then - you have to remember to check them.

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