I’ve been trying to meet new friends and new people to hang out with so have been going to a lot of social events.
I noticed that everyone seems to ask for my instagram account and when I say I don’t have one that connection kind of dies, and it feels too personal to ask for someone number when I just met them.
I don’t want to create an instagram because of the privacy invasions of meta but I also don’t want to feel left out when trying to make new connections. Anyone have any advice?
Social media is literally normal.
It has gone through a process called normalization in order to become an expected part of social interaction. The op even said that people expect them to have a particular type of account and they feel like not having one excludes them from having more friends.
Yes, you are normal if you have a social media account and abnormal if you don’t.
That’s your bubble, not mine and not generally. Social media profiles is something 2010’s here, maybe some still have it. What’s in now is loose communities like Lemmy or Tiktok and chat apps for irl friends.
It’s also the ops bubble. My replies are generally directed at the op and their post.
I will also point to the requirement though, that us visa applicants give up social media account names or be subject to denial as evidence that it’s considered normal.
If it wasn’t considered normal to have social media then the cbp wouldn’t be so quick to implement that process.
I agree with you. Social media has been normalized and you are not fit in society if you don’t have any at all.
The ol’ sarcasm detectors’ flashing red, ringing the bell and pouring black smoke out of all the panel joints but yes: if you want to fit into society it’s important to have social media.
If you wanted to live a private life in the 1970s, would it be better to descend from your cabin hundreds of miles from civilization with a wild mane of shaggy hair wearing your homemade leather suit or with an unstylish but kempt haircut, nondescript jeans and shirt and military duffel bag looking like any other of the myriad characters wandering the roads at the time?
Obviously you’d want the latter. Part of privacy is blending in so that you don’t arouse interest.
Nowadays if you want to be a private person and still interact in society, like the op, you need to have all the trappings of a someone who doesn’t raise alarm bells. That includes, especially as your age drops, social media.