I was explaining this to younger friends over the weekend - before everyone had phones in their pockets, we would head to the pub. Every Friday and Saturday eve

I was explaining this to younger friends over the weekend - before everyone had phones in their pockets, we would head to the pub. Every Friday and Saturday evening, same pub, same time. A bunch of us would be there, and the night would progress from there. If you couldn't make it, you didn't turn up, simple as. If we were feeling sociable on a weeknight, we headed to the same pub. There'd usually be one or two others that felt the same, and they'd introduce us to others, and the circle spread. Go to the pub more than 3 times over a couple of weeks and you'd start to be known as a regular, and introduced to the other regulars. Over time, those random introductions became the core of your social life. Now, of course, we don't need to do this because we can tell the group chat which bar we're meeting at. I'm not sure it's an improvement.