11 ms·

Social life is impossible without the mainstream technology. I've never owned a cell phone nor ever had a social media account in my life. Sure, it gets me the

by kleiba 6y ago

Social life is impossible without the mainstream technology. I've never owned a cell phone nor ever had a social media account in my life. Sure, it gets me the occasional eye roll but trust me, my social life is just fine. Caveat: old person speaking.

seesawtron 6y ago
yeah depends on which stage of life you are living in. Sadly doesn't work for everybody but doesn't hurt to give it a try if someone wants to.
- kleiba 6y ago
  It's not so much the stage of life, it's that these technologies have become the de facto standard way of interacting in today's younger part of the population. In other words: even though cell phones and social media were around when I was younger, they didn't play the central role they do today, so presumably it was much easier for me to do without them and still have a normal social life than it would be today. Here's a sad thought experiment though: if you can only remain an active part of your circle of friends if you use the same technology as they do, what does that say about the depth of that friendship?
paulryanrogers 6y ago
Network effects are real. Financially independent adults can choose their friends among a large pool of candidates. Kids, broke college students, and those generally less well off may have fewer options.
- Zelphyr 6y ago
  The flaw in that way of thinking is that kids, broke college students, and those generally less well off had no social life or network before social media.
  - MakersF 6y ago
    True, but that was because no one had social media. Now that a big majority of people have it and interact over it, if you don't have it the chances of being marginalized are higher. When everyone was using SMSes to chat, how did the kid that did not have a phone felt? And people were social before phones existes too. I think that being outside of the main mean of communication is going to have an impact on your social life, independently of what the medium is
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dj_mc_merlin 6y ago
I have never had a social media account (younger person here) and it has gotten me many eye rolls too, but I've never cared. However, whatsapp is different, everyone always treated it like internet texting where I'm from. I call my friends when I want to hear them and properly talk to them, but many things such as planning trips and talking about things that interest all of us are just way better done over some sort of text medium over longer periods of time.
est31 6y ago
> Caveat: old person speaking. There you have it. Class of 1950 uses letters to organize itself. Class of 2000 uses e-mail. Class of 2010 uses Facebook. Class of 2020 uses Tiktok or idk snapchat. And this issue isn't just about your class, it also includes any peer group of any kind. For me as a 20s something, the choice is quite binary. Nowadays you can't even participate in free software communities without using proprietary services. Many free software projects have discords instead of community run matrix or IRC instances.
- kleiba 6y ago
  Nowadays... Hey, I might be old, but I still live nowadays too!

by kleiba 6y ago

seesawtron 6y ago

yeah depends on which stage of life you are living in. Sadly doesn't work for everybody but doesn't hurt to give it a try if someone wants to.

kleiba 6y ago
It's not so much the stage of life, it's that these technologies have become the de facto standard way of interacting in today's younger part of the population. In other words: even though cell phones and social media were around when I was younger, they didn't play the central role they do today, so presumably it was much easier for me to do without them and still have a normal social life than it would be today. Here's a sad thought experiment though: if you can only remain an active part of your circle of friends if you use the same technology as they do, what does that say about the depth of that friendship?

paulryanrogers 6y ago

Network effects are real. Financially independent adults can choose their friends among a large pool of candidates. Kids, broke college students, and those generally less well off may have fewer options.

Zelphyr 6y ago
The flaw in that way of thinking is that kids, broke college students, and those generally less well off had no social life or network before social media.
- MakersF 6y ago
  True, but that was because no one had social media. Now that a big majority of people have it and interact over it, if you don't have it the chances of being marginalized are higher. When everyone was using SMSes to chat, how did the kid that did not have a phone felt? And people were social before phones existes too. I think that being outside of the main mean of communication is going to have an impact on your social life, independently of what the medium is

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dj_mc_merlin 6y ago

I have never had a social media account (younger person here) and it has gotten me many eye rolls too, but I've never cared. However, whatsapp is different, everyone always treated it like internet texting where I'm from. I call my friends when I want to hear them and properly talk to them, but many things such as planning trips and talking about things that interest all of us are just way better done over some sort of text medium over longer periods of time.

est31 6y ago

> Caveat: old person speaking. There you have it. Class of 1950 uses letters to organize itself. Class of 2000 uses e-mail. Class of 2010 uses Facebook. Class of 2020 uses Tiktok or idk snapchat. And this issue isn't just about your class, it also includes any peer group of any kind. For me as a 20s something, the choice is quite binary. Nowadays you can't even participate in free software communities without using proprietary services. Many free software projects have discords instead of community run matrix or IRC instances.

kleiba 6y ago
Nowadays... Hey, I might be old, but I still live nowadays too!