If all your friends are on Facebook: no, you really can't.

I haven't had a Facebook account for five years. I get by just fine by emailing or texting a friend when I want to get a hold of them.

Yes you can, I have friends whom for various reason don't have a Facebook or stopped using it/deleted it. People will adjust and instead we contact them by mail or phone. Perhaps it's a bit of a annoyance, but you are not kept prisoner.

I often get invited to events through Facebook. Without Facebook, I would miss out on a lot of events.

For this reason I'm basically stuck with Facebook, but I've unfollowed most of my friends, so this reduces the burden to some extent.

Are we talking about friends or acquaintances?

Because if ones friends forget to invite them to events because they are not on FB, then it’s time to find new friends.

While I tend to agree, it's a little like telling someone to just "find a better job"; it's not always so easy. Maybe some people are unfortunate enough to not have real friends, and shallow Facebook connections are all they have.

Even though the shallow connections take up time that could be spent forging more meaningful connections with those around them, not everyone is self-confident enough to go cold-turkey.

Definitely, for some people it’s easier said than done, but I think that’s a very small minority and not your average FB user?

Ask one of your friends to text you if there is an event going on. As an added bonus, you might get some honest interaction with your friend.

Just like you're not caught up in a literal prison when your proverbial student loan debt prison is due every month.

If your friends don't want to expend the effort to communicate with you via email, phone or other, non-Facebook means: they're not really your friends.

Depends on your definition of "friend", for sure!

When it comes to messaging I prefer XMPP with Omemo these days. There is Gajim for PC, Conversations for Android and ChatSecure for Apple.

Of course, many people don't want to change their habits and I think there is no need to push too hard. However, I convinced a friend of mine to try Gajim on PC and to my surprise he sticked with it and installed the Conversations App a few months later on his smartphone.

Of course, the network effect of FB is very real. So overall this anecdote doesn't really change anything. But I think it is import to remind ourselves every once in a while that there are people out there who are willing to change their habits. And some of these people, in turn, influence other people. It's unlikely that you start a trend but I think we should keep trying.