[simplerman]

> All I hear about is "Everybody else can do X! We're the only ones that can't."

This is the main issue. If they don't participate in online communities where their friends are, they will have significant social disadvantage.

As a grown up, I had quit Facebook for about a year, and I noticed my social life was declining slowly. Someone would forget to invite me to some event. Someone might be shocked that I didn't know so and had a baby. And I am sure people started to label me as weirdo for not having Facebook.

Back to kids, yeah this is a social issue, not something that one can solve alone for just their family.

[bradlys]

> And I am sure people started to label me as weirdo for not having Facebook.

They probably just don’t think of you. That’s the more likely scenario. People who engage with social media will stay in people’s minds more. If you’re not on there or not engaged, people will likely just forget about your existence. If I’m not connected to someone on social media or they don’t engage at all, there’s quite a bit of me forgetting they ever existed. After all, it’s not like we all see each other in physical spaces all the time. (Even pre-pandemic)

[c22]

I quit facebook roughly seven years ago. Like you, I did notice a decline in my social life over the following year. However, things did slowly improve over time and now I have no complaints (the last year has been tough to keep up with people due to the pandemic, though).

The difference is I have to go out of my way to keep up with people over text, calls, or email. It's not that hard to do, though, since it's how I lived my life before facebook. Some people do think it's weird that they can't find me on facebook and I am probably missing out on one or two people who moved to "only facebook" communications, but honestly I don't really miss them.