zlacker

>>joeman+(OP)
This advice to quit social media is always a hit on HN. When I was 10 years younger I read the same thing on HN, was thoroughly convinced and quit social media. I even followed the advice of trying to stay in touch by email. Sure.

Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on. I asked them why they didn’t tell me and they were confused. They said the posted it on social media. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know a lack of social media meant that I have lost touch with old acquaintances completely. I have a few close friends and that’s it.

Maybe that’s an ok tradeoff to make, but it’s worth knowing that before getting into it.

>>nindal+a7
> Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on

This doesn't really seem that important if your only method of knowing this was a post blasted to hundreds (or thousands) of people. Or, to put it another way: if you mattered, you would've gotten a direct message or call from them.

I'd argue that social media has normalized keeping up with people who aren't supposed to be part of your life forever. But, we should take a step back and realize that not everything should or will last forever. If you cross paths again then you can catch up, but having life updates constantly? No thanks.

>>hypeat+8a
>if you mattered, you would've gotten a direct message or call from them.

That ignores the asymmetry of a lot of life events. For example, if a parent died, I'm not going to call everyone in my life to tell them, I would have more important stuff on my mind. I might post it on social media and then the onus is on other people to reach out to me. And if someone doesn't reach out, it will hurt the relationship a little even if I'm not conscience of it because when I think of people who were there for me during a tough time, the friend who never knew my parent died wouldn't come to mind.

>>slg+UB
My mother died when I was in college, before social media was a thing. I told a few closer friends about it, and asked them to spread the news and to tell others that I didn't really want to talk about it. I was missing a few weeks of the semester because of it, and knew that people would ask me where I'd been once I was back, and knew I wouldn't have the emotional bandwidth to tell everyone the story over and over and over, and accept their condolences gracefully.

It makes me really sad if it's true that people assume that when they post big, difficult stuff like that on social media, anyone who doesn't see it doesn't care about them. Even for people who are active on social media, the feed and post promotion algorithms make it fairly likely that a decent chunk of people who really should see that post might not see it.