Ask Lemmy

You might be exaggerating a bit, but you're right. I have quite a number of friends from, say, college or other interests that I want to keep up with. But maybe they live far away, or are now busy with a different stage in their lives, so we don't or can't hang out casually like we used to to catch up. I avoided IG for more than a decade out of a desire to not get addicted to it and somethingsomethingfuckcorporate or whatever. But the practical outcome of this is that I've lost contact with a lot of good friends that I would like to keep up with. Not through any malintent on either of our parts, but simply because I am choosing not to be on the platform where they share about their lives.

And along with your point, a great number of community events are run on these social media sites. There is a facebook group dedicated to playing pickup ultimate frisbee in my city, and I want to do that. So if I want to stay up to date on things going on in the group, like new games being scheduled or regular games being rainchecked, I need to be on facebook.

I often organize canyoneering trips for my friend group, and these trips often may have up to 40 people interested in going. And often there are one or two people who can't join the facebook or whatsapp chats because for whatever reason they don't have accounts on those platforms. It is so annoying to have to text them every new detail and update because they aren't on the platform everyone else is on. I'll do it, but it's annoying.