It's an interesting bit, this. When you open an avenue of communication, then others get re-prioritized accordingly.

Having text options lowers the perceived need for calling in person. Having Facebook lowers the need for in person contact, since people gets some crumbs of info about you off your Facebook feed. And so on.

What can one do, alone? Can you reverse a trend that's affecting all your friends and acquaintances? Not likely. Maybe just for a few close friends, but everyone else.. meh.

I wouldn't really classify instant messaging as social media, even though all social media platforms have messengers attached nowadays.

Also, if your friends are making an effort to keep in contact with you, why are you faulting them for choosing X medium instead of Y?

I should be allowed not to use medium X?

Why am I forced to have and check (daily, at least) IM?

Turn notifications on, don't check it until you get notifications?

Notifications have this huge downside that they disturb you from your work and from your leisure time, fragmenting attention to the point of being useless to yourself.

This has long been decried by people like Cal Newport and others. Knowledge workers need their attention span intact, and yet all the modern tools make interruptions more likely.

I've been in a Messenger group of only 5 people, who were trying to synchronize going to the movies. My phone kept bleeping for 5 damn hours, until they figured what to do. Absolutely disgusting.

I turned notifications off exactly because I got a few hundred of them per day.

You get hundreds of messages from friends?