Not for everyone. Maybe "not safe" became the default for some social media users. If so, I feel sorry for you guys. Always needing to check in to assure your friends and family you're not dead seems like a chore with little upside. I can't imagine that that's actually true.

For those of us who do not use social media [yep, looks like I have to be "that guy" today], it's in no way the default. I can tell you that if people I know don't hear from me over social media, they are not going to bat an eye, because it is normal not to hear from me over social media.

It's an interesting question though: Does frequent use of something like Facebook lead to an expectation of future frequent use of it from your peers? I'm not sure if that's true. Try it as an experiment. Don't log into social media for 3 months. See how many "friends" actually try to contact you through some other means to check if you're OK. My guess is that fewer than you think will. I know when I jumped ship on social media, I just stopped logging in without telling anyone, and exactly zero people panicked. They just started E-mailing me when they had something to say.