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?

OP the social life of your parents sounds like mine when I was young, and it sounds like that of my children. It is probably the social life of lots of teenagers and young people today. I don't think that much has changed for most people. They just communicate in different ways.

parents were teenagers in the late 1950s, early 1960s but they had a vibrant social life. Every weekend they went to clubs and dance halls or to the local cinema and they had LOADS of friends. My parents had a MASSIVE social circle.

With people in the area they lived? Maybe you need to concentrate on developing your social life with people nearer you, so you can pop to the cinema or a club, it's hard to maintain friendships with people who live miles away.

What was your parents social life like when they were in their 50's?

I think there's a halfway house and it's important also to keep that face to face contact. TBH, email is almost no different to whatsapp. You're writing words on a screen which are conveyed to a recipient so I think you could get that. If someone doesn't send you a message, you aren't bothered by it.

Facebook is different as it chooses what it thinks you should see. It's not a great way to rely on information getting out* as the algorithms choose for you, so you can never be sure who's seen it and it shows you stuff from everyone and every company. If you can manage that (perhaps have an account where you check the pages of people you like?) it could work but I don't think Facebook is essential although it is where people post those daily updates.

I think you need to continue to emphasise the face to face contact, and use whatever means you need to to establish that.

*see: www.theverge.com/2017/12/19/16796078/facebook-friend-death-post-algorithm-problems

For a sad story about how Facebook just chose not to show any posts from a dying friend as they didn't post very often.

thanks sparkle, so it sounds as though as whatsapp doesn't connect you to someone in any 'worse' a way than if your boss has your phone number?

I assume whatsapp needs a smartphone? (as it's wi fi rather than by phone network?)
I think the great thing about social media is that we can choose what works for us individually - chat idly and get great advice on mn, use new fangled things like snapchat and so on or not, whatever we please. For a few remaining die hards (inc me!), texts and e-mail seem to work ok, with the occasional doodle bug added in - though of course I may be missing out on masses of group stuff without knowing!

Do people think it depends on how you tend to socialise - perhaps people who go in more for one to one meetups than group gettogethers use social media differently as a result?

I don't have WhatsApp and I want it now after reading this

Some people take a stance against social media and don't want to be convinced about it anyway ( Karlos ) which is fine. But there's no point in complaining that everyone else uses it. Social media is what you make of it - you don't have to post your life in minute-by-minute details if you don't want to (and tbh, most people probably don't want you to either )

My family is fairly spread out and it's nice to see what the ones abroad are up to via FB. I know far more about them now than the days when we made occasional phone calls. It's a much quicker (or constant) way of catching up with the news rather than trying to put a month's worth of detail into a phone call/email.

You may think that has changed the way we communicate and not for the better - we all have our own opinions which will vary.

OP, I don't think you mean to make it hard for your friends to contact you, but it's not the way they operate. Especially for the distance between you all, if you are not 'in vision' (even on a screen) then there might be a bit of an 'out of sight, out of mind' thing going on. The friends that are on social media will know more about each other and what is going on in their lives which makes a quick chat easier. Sometimes it's hard to remember what you did over the last month!

WhatsApp is just text messaging, but really good for staying in touch with a group of friends all at the same time.

I don't post anything publicly on Facebook but have a secret group set up with my close friends which we use to stay in touch.

If you don't want to move with the times that's fine, but you can't then complain at feeling left out! I suspect that a few of your friends may feel that you aren't that interested in staying in touch.

Have to say WhatsApp is the best to keep in touch in my experience with young and old as you can group chat which is fun without sending a million messages. I am not keen on FB as my time just disappears so now use s timer to make sure I have a break. As life has for faster for me it is great to be in touch and send photos and videos . Horses for courses!

Haven't RTHT but I see FB and WhatsApp as a way of easily facilitating face to face meetings or a similar type of closer communication.

People are busy nowadays so instant communication - sending a quick msg to a WhatsApp group whilst sitting at your desk or on a bus just seems less hassle than picking up the phone or even emailing. It's great if you're trying to arrange a meeting with several people, instead of doing it individually.

You don't have to join any social media but a simple messaging service like WhatsApp is tremendously useful. Even if you join Fb, you can scroll through the majority of it if you're not interested but is is a good way of keeping up with people if they're far away.

I use social media primarily for sharing important news and for messaging. It's really easy to have chats which involve multiple people and don't have a cost. It's also a very quick way of sharing news and reaching lots of people very quickly.

Reading a group messenger conversation is also far easier than trying to figure out a multi person email.

I never use email for personal stuff. I only use it for work as I find it hard work to follow conversation chains through it. I also feel like I have to write at length in reply which I don't always have time to do.

I'm not on FB and I'm in my 20s.
People use WhatsApp more or just as much as FB so being on social media isn't an excuse. Sadly they're probably not interested in messaging you.

I say that as people also take forever to reply or not reply at all on WhatsApp. WhatsApp has replaced text messaging and I think more use that to communicate than Facebook.

To be honest people don't even visit nowadays even if local. It's the way the world is going. If they really cared, they'd find a way.

I don't share much btw and don't use the app much. I mostly use messenger which alerts me to new messages as texting does.

It doesn't mean that I never see people in person. It does make it easier and quicker to make arrangements to do so.

falange I was just curious about OP’s age bracket because my parents use all kinds of social media and messenger style apps to keep up to date with family etc. They are in their early 60’s. My In-laws (70’s) plus a lot of my friends parents and grandparents (going up to late 80’s) use Facebook. Plus my grandpa (93) uses Skype to keep in touch with us.

I'm 53 and joined Instagram earlier this year and in all honesty it's been life changing. I was quite cynical about it before but I feel like a window on the world has been opened for me.

Because of my age, unfortunately only about a third of my Facebook friends are on it, so the people I follow comprise about a third friends, a third fashion or interiors bloggers and a third celebrities. I've reformed much closer relationships with Instagram friends though as we're all always on it! I'm just trying to persuade more Facebook friends to join!

In fact I know of many younger people who are now shutting down their Facebook accounts and just using Instagram, as Instagram is like Facebook used to be - people just sharing their best photos from their lives.

Just dive in OP - you'll never look back!

OP, I have a friend like you (we're 50/51) - we've known each other since school, we used to share a flat, we've been on holiday together etc. She only lives about 20 mins away from me. She refuses to do any social media, not even to lurk or send messages. And despite my best intentions, we have lost touch with each other.

She's even bad at replying to a simple text, because she forgets to turn her phone on at all. and she never answers her land line.

It just makes it that bit more difficult to be spontaneous and organise a meet up. And then life takes over and I sort of forget about her and because she never crops up on FB and Twitter I'm terrible, I just sort of move on to others who are there.

Like others have said, it's her choice and it's your choice but I do wonder if she'd been a bit more active on social media whether we would have stayed much better friends. I'm going to ring her in a bit - I bet I don't get hold of her.

@Homemenu1
parents were teenagers in the late 1950s, early 1960s but they had a vibrant social life. Every weekend they went to clubs and dance halls or to the local cinema and they had LOADS of friends. My parents had a MASSIVE social circle.

With people in the area they lived?

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.

Perhaps I'm looking at the past with rose-tinted spectacles but it seems that people did more things and spent more time outdoors, being social and talking to others, seeing real people instead of staring at screens.
My dad told me that when he was little he spent a lot of time playing outdoors with his friends (my grandparents' house was near fields where kids would play). It seems a lot of kids are cooped up indoors in front of the TV or computer screens these days.

Adapt and evolve or die out...

I'm a "late adopter" myself when it comes to social media but I happily use (mostly ignore) FB - it's a convenient way to keep up with friends all over the world and also to organise events/parties. Whatsapp is similarly good for messaging friends/groups like colleagues, family, friend groups etc...

You mention politeness, as in you feel people in your life are being impolite by not reaching out to you through your preferred form of communication. The problem is I'm afraid, you've rather made yourself a modern day social media "hermit" by making it a bit more difficult and thus annoying to get in touch with you. As a society we have changed rapidly within the last decade to prioritize convenience, social media, amazon deliveries, grocery deliveries, netflix streaming etc... Of course no one is shunning you but yes, after a while it might become easier to become an oversight as in "out of social media sight, out of mind!" Sorry OP, not what you want to hear I know.

Pax that generation were known as the 'civic generation' and research has shown they did join more groups, were involved socially and so on (see the work of Puttnam on social capital). It isn't clear whether they were an anomaly, or why people socialize differently now, one explanation is people don't like conforming as much and joining groups (e.g. church, political parties) and have other ways to socialize more as individuals which meet their preferences.

Anyway, this isn't really relevant to how you feel more connected going forward. I do know people not on FB who are still very socially active, my mum for one just texts people for meet-ups but she has a lot of friends and so if one doesn't appear for a while, lots of others are available.

I think you just have to ask yourself- do I want to change this situation? If no, carry on. If yes, then you have a choice to do so by dipping your toe in the social media water. If you don't like it, you can stop or deregister at any time. You don't need to align your actions to a whole deconstruction of society and its failings, and some of your assumptions about social media are wrong anyway (I am not addicted to FB, I pop on it for about 4 min a day!)

I'm 52 and I've found real life friends through FB, by joining interest groups (book, a tv show, The Archers!) and then finding out someone lives fairly near to me or going to a meet up in a pub that was organised. It's all done slowly and carefully. You can make your privacy settings quite rigid and no one will ask for your address!

As ppl have said, very useful for local events. For example, if you were on FB, you don't have to post anything, but you could see, by joining some groups, if there was a local event happening at the time you were visiting, or plan a visit to coincide with an event, which might be a fun and good way of meeting even more people you used to know. You really can make it work for you, not the other way around.

OP, my brother has just joined FB at the age of 64 because he loves walking OUTDOORS and wants to join some local walking grooups as he's now retired. He's now found loads of groups he didn't know about - through Facebook.

I was you up until quite recently -
I wasn't on any sort of social media until a few years ago - no smart phone, facebook - nothing. I didn't see the point. Since l started using face book and messanger particularly several old old friendships that were gently dying away through distance and me being a rubbish communicator have fizzed back to life - actual let's meet and do things sort of life - and l think it's great!

It's just a tool for people to use to get together and keep up with each other, you shouldn't cut yourself off. You don't have to.

OP "Perhaps I'm looking at the past with rose-tinted spectacles but it seems that people did more things and spent more time outdoors, being social and talking to others, seeing real people instead of staring at screens"

But people still do that. I have friends in 40s and 50s who do that.

What is this idea about staring at screens? We are interacting with people when we do that. As for outdoors, the local parks and green spaces are always busy.

Pax you have such a negative view of what you call 'social media' and you are sounding a bit silly about it all. You can't lump it all in together as 'social media', you can pick the bits you want and ignore the bits you don't.

My life would be far far less rich without, for instance, WhatsApp. One DC has been on the other side of the world, she can send me instant pictures and I can see her and can reply instantly. Why would you knock that? My DSS has been up Snowdon this afternoon, I've seen a pic of him - just like that. My other DC went off and forgot a document - I took a pic of it and sent it via Whatsapp. Quick and instant.

I watched some old videos of my now deceased parents and took a clip on my mobile and sent it via Whatsapp to my DSis and we both had a touching conversation on the phone about it. How would I have sent that clip without what you call 'social media'? It would have been absolutely impossible but it opened up a conversation between my sibling and me that was precious.

FB - I only have it so I can see all the uploaded pics of my DCs whils they're on their travels. And they use it to messenger me with links to interesting articles (mostly about Trump!). So easy to do. But I'm not a great FBer and am very stringent with it and have not many friends on there and don't accept lots. I use it with caution.

So my point is... you are cutting your nose off to spite your face and making out social media is a totally bad thing when I can honestly say that I am so so glad I am not too old to use it. Sparingly.

I also have to add I am over 10 years older than you. Embrace wonderful technology for goodness sake. It's only going to get more. I don't want to be left behind, but it sounds like you actually want this and you are living in the past. If you don't embrace what's out there, you will be the loser.

It is easy to use FB and WhatsApp in a way that doesn't involve hours wasted addicted in front of a screen nor expose yourself to bullying, invasion of privacy etc. Really easy to avoid the bad stuff. Thus, when someone doesn't use these methods of communication I assume they aren't interested in communicating.

If you are known to be an introvert, people will be even more inclined to draw the conclusion that you aren't interested in keeping in contact. That's a little bit hurtful to them so will likely make them even less inclined to go to extra effort to stay in contact.

p.s. Also meant to add. There is nothing nothing nothing like being able to have a free phone call from the other side of the world with a child (or anyone close to you) and hear as clear as if they were in the next room.

No phone charges for anyone, all done via Wifi on Whatsapp.

Has anyone mentioned the joy of FaceTime. Keeping in touch with family is brilliant using this.