Or not. Maybe they just decide it's not worth the hassle of tracking down the outliers. I guess we can argue that anybody who's a real friend will message you using your preferred comm, though that cuts both ways. If you are a real friend, you'd message them back with their preferred system.
Email is a system which you can assume virtually 100% of users have and doesn't force users to participate in a social network that has been shown to be harmful for a lot of users.
Further email doesn't force you to participate in any particular service at all because it is a federated service.
Assuming that someone should get a facebook to talk to you is like assuming someone should switch to sprint to call you.
Imagine how moronic the world would be if all the different phone networks were disconnected from one another.
Regardless of the morality, weirdness or absurdness, that ship has sailed. Many, many groups only use facebook, and if you want to be a part of them, you have to as well.
I agree it is suboptimal, and whether or not it is worth the tradeoff is an individual decision, but that is the world we live in.
The group level is where most of the rubber meets the road here.
I work at a youth centre. The teens I know really have the widest range of options of contacting each other. They use FB mostly for school and family. Email is used mainly for sending documents or attachments.
If they're hard to reach it's because they chose to, not because you're using the wrong comm channel :)
Huh? "Preferred" doesn't cut both ways. It never does, unless it's a shared preference. Using any shared method of communication to contact each other is what real friends do.
Also a group that "just decides" outliers are not worth the hassle, are not friends. They seriously are not. Friend groups are pretty much defined as the sort of groups that do not do this. Except in cases of grave social misconduct, often destroying the "group" or "friend" aspect in the process.
They are a group, yes. And indeed, some groups will sometimes just decide to ostracise outliers if it conflicts with the group identity. Nothing inherently wrong with that, btw, this can be very useful for certain types of group. As long as it doesn't become the main type of group you identify with. Because then, as we see from all the people making excuses all over this thread, not adhering to certain rules of the group-identity becomes an existential fear of epic proportions, because it touches upon a very fundamental behavioural aspect of our biology--fear of being cast out of the tribe (which used to mean suffering followed by near-certain death).
Facebook is currently exploiting this behavioural trigger (together with an addictive cocktail of other triggers) in a quarter of the world's population.
If you’re considered an outlier then you should probably start finding new friends.
Generally back when I used facebook the cloests friends I had had 0 interaction on facebook and we usually just direct message through messenger or imessage.
Fscebook at that time was just for maintaining those “outlier” relationships until I realized its better to have closer bonds with fewer people.
I don't think this is true. We always have that moment at parties, "Where's Kyle? Oh shit, he deleted his facebook and didn't see the invite, did anybody text him to tell him?!" No, we didn't, because 99% of our friends use the very useful party organizing app with integrated chat and picture sharing, Facebook.
And here we see the mismatch between the two camps:
Sure, [good|strong|old|pick your adjective] friends will contact you regardless of your facebook involvement.
But there are plenty of acquaintances, groups, events and whatnot that only get organized or contacted on facebook.
And even so, why would you put the extra burden on your friends to contact you in a special way? Why wouldn't you make it easy for them to contact you?
If I live on a mountain, 1,000 miles from everyone, people--even my friends--don't invite me to their parties because they don't think I'm available. I have isolated myself, and people take social cues from that. People also take clues from social isolation.
I'm reminded of when I set my mother up for email. She really didn't think she needed it or would want it, "Getting a stamp just isn't that hard." But the fact of the matter is that the lower friction method of communication enabled her to be in contact with many, many more people. Facebook is even lower friction than that.
"Those aren't your friends" ignores too many realities of life.
> And even so, why would you put the extra burden on your friends to contact you in a special way? Why wouldn't you make it easy for them to contact you?
Texting is just as easy as facebook messaging. Or they can use discord, slack, etc etc. facebook isn't the only way to contact someone that is easy.
> But there are plenty of acquaintances, groups, events and whatnot that only get organized or contacted on facebook.
Maybe this is because I grew an introvert, but I can deal with being by myself as well as most of my friends. Going to events, etc isn't a must have. It's something that you can do if you want too. If I want to go hang out, then I will contact people. I will make it easy for them to say yes/no/no response. But I don't have to be apart of every group meeting, or every little discussion.
This is like saying you taught your mother to enjoy mint-flavoured soda water ("a glass of water is just as good for thirst") ... as a way to defend having to drink alcohol to feel accepted by your friends.
Oh and in a lot of cases, the fear is not even real, you just believe you need FB. Your friends might just surprise you yet.
It isn't just moving your finger an inch. It's contacting you differently than they contact literally every one else in their social circle.
And thanks for the incredible insight into who is my friend and who isn't. Your ability to judge from several paragraphs of my writing and nothing more is pretty impressive.
The things I missed weren't really, my friends exactly, but rather broad groups with common interests.
If one doesn't hang out where everyone else does, you can't expect people to invite you when they look at each other and say, "Let's go somewhere."
> And thanks for the incredible insight into who is my friend and who isn't.
Read it again. He's not actually saying that.
Buddy I'm pretty sure it is your inability to judge just how many of your friends would still take the effort to reach out to you if you were to quit being a FB user, given any of the good reasons to do so.
Just like you might fear they won't be your friends or you won't be having a good time if you don't drink with them. That fear is most probably not real. And if it does turn out to be true, in the case if alcohol you probably dodged a bullet. And in the case of FB use ... well it's your call.
A social network isn't a place which implies exclusivity. If you are at one place you aren't at another and it also implies significant effort to move from one place to another.
Sending an email really does imply moving your finger an inch to use a different app.
I'm more likely to have someone on facebook that I am to be able to look up their email via name on any of my phone apps (either by having their email saved against their contact, or having it in gmail)
> My friends will actively invite me (I don't use facebook) to events if they want me there.
The part where you get left out is when someone from your squad sees a cool event and decides to go. They're going regardless of who else is going, but it would be nice to have some friends there.
So they post in the squad group chat "Hey I'm going to this event, anyone in?" aaaaand that's about it as far as organization goes. If you're in you're in, if you're not, that's fine too.
Not every event warrants personally inviting everyone you'd like to see there. Personally inviting people is for small primarily gatherings, not for more casual larger stuff.
casual isn't friendship. My friends and I, hang out because we enjoy each others company and like to do things together. Not to invite people because we are lonely.
Plus, I don't mind being "left out" or "missing something". As I get older, it's just not worth the hassle
Why not? People are busy. They have jobs and partners and pets and sometimes kids. All of that takes time and attention.
These days I talk less to my closest friends than I did to my farthest acquaintances in high school or even college. It's kinda sad but that's just how it is. And trying to get together face-to-face? LoL, it can take months to align our schedules.
And when it comes to larger stuff. Sometimes you just wanna organize a birthday party or something for everyone, you know? If I want to invite you to a party like that, are we not friends?
> If I want to invite you to a party like that, are we not friends
Acquaintances or good acquaintances.
I think this boils down to each person's definition of friends and friendship along with the amount of social interaction each person needs.
I need very little social interaction, so I tend to keep close friends and not much else. I know others who always like to be around someone. They don't care much who it is, and they generally have looser terms for friendship.
Also, face-to-face isn't required. Hop on discord or skype, or just send them a text message. If they are a close friend and you enjoy their company, you should try to keep the lines of communication open.
> These days I talk less to my closest friends than I did to my farthest acquaintances in high school or even college. It's kinda sad but that's just how it is.
Well, at least now you have your FB to collectively like and share away your sorrows. I'm sure you feel less sad while you're on it.
> If I want to invite you to a party like that, are we not friends?
If you do not invite me to this party just because I don't use FB? What do you think yourself? Would you call yourself my friend?
I mean if you forget, ok. But if you keep forgetting, yes that is how friendships wither and die. This is a natural thing. If it feels like a painful idea to lose someone's friendship that way, watering it is really one of the easiest things to do. If instead it feels like it is a hard thing to do, then ask yourself and consider what you really fear losing? (probably something other than friendship--not necessarily bad)
You can of course use FB to connect with friends. But, like alcohol, you cannot justify lack of FB to justify not connecting with your friends.
I think it's pretty bad to restrict this sort of communication (which nowhere requires anything remotely like FB use) to a singular communication channel and actively hampering any attempts to transparently include other methods that do not not involve FB use.
And the buck doesn't stop at FB or its developers, now you are forcing other people start using, too.
Maybe sometimes I want to go see acquintances though, not just people who are already good friends and will remember to invite me via my preferred way of communication?
The party didn't want him. No one at that party cared enough to make less of an effort to inform him that there was a party than it would take me to get a glass of water from the kitchen.
Sending snail mail is pretty easy too. If you were to switch to only communicating via snail mail, do you think your invites to social events would drop? The events probably didn't want you anyways, since they couldn't be bothered to just send you the snail mail via this simple internet service. They're not your real friends.
What's the actual number? Because if 99 people out of a 100 all didn't think to text Kyle, then I don't think there's even a handful of people that actually really ever wanted him to be there.
It takes a very particular size of group for that to happen. If you hang out with 4-5 people you would know if you "forgot" to invite someone. If it's much more than that, that is really a lot of people who it didn't occur to whether they wanted to see Kyle there or not.
But you should really ask Kyle, about feeling left out and the quality of his friendships.
> 99% of our friends use the very useful party organizing app with integrated chat and picture sharing, Facebook
Except that is not why you are on FB while trying to defend your behaviour towards Kyle, that's only the story an alcoholic tells to himself when he's meeting his friends at the corner pub.
If FB usage was just a "party organizing app with integrated chat and picture sharing", we would not be having this discussion.
Let alone a "very useful" one, which would obviously allow to invite people transparently and easily via multiple channels of communication. FB does the exact opposite of this[0]. Now listen to yourself defending this!! Is that really your true opinion of this "organising app" speaking, or is it your dopamine-addiction, group identity and fear of ostracism?
[0] Try using FB links sent through other comm for a bit with a logged out, cookies cleared browser. Like, a day or two.
Fear has nothing to do with it. When I was not on facebook, I was getting left out of activities and events that weren't exactly with friends, but more with common interests.
So you are basically saying that you can be an ass and make it harder for others to contact you. Then if they are worthy enough you they will spend their time installing whatever communication tool you use. I do not get the feeling that I can be a princess and I also have to care about relation.