Here's an analogy: Imagine if we discovered that thousands of cars had some fatal flaw that could result in death and instead of recalling them the manufacturer just made a DIY repair kit available for twenty bucks online. How many people would just put it off or ignore the problem until their car exploded?

That's the problem we have with social media: It's got huge problems that most people are only vaguely aware of, and the solutions they offer are mostly esoteric DIY controls that very few people will care about or use.

One of the most important "soft skills" I've learned as developer over the past 25 years is that ignoring people because they're interested in things I'm not interested in makes managing a team incredibly hard. You need to be able to listen even when people are talking about "boring" or irrelevant stuff, because sometimes there's something very relevant buried in there. People aren't one-dimensional and they won't always talk about things you want to hear, so if you reject them on that basis you'll miss the good stuff too. Plus, I've found a lot of the time the rest turns out to be quite interesting too if you take the time to listen.

Does everyone have to be social via social networks nowadays in order to be considered “social”?

Can’t we just be social, you know, face to face? And then just leave online media to news/facts?

It’s so weird to me that in order to be considered “social” it’s not enough to just be social in person.

Have we really come to that?

I think about this a lot. My hypothesis is that social status is increasingly, and will be increasingly, dictated by your "follower" count. How many eyeballs you can attract. Even worse, in my opinion, it will be the primary driver of people's perceptions of you. Basically how good are you at getting attention?

It seems a bit ridiculous to say, but I observe the "high status" or high follower count people networking more and more exclusively with each other. On the other side I see traditionally "high status" people developing their online persona - whether its a youtube channel, twitter account, substack, podcast, etc.

We are in the middle of a societal restructuring (that much is obvious) in a way that the internet is now injecting itself right into the middle of social hierarchy and relationships.

Can’t we just be social, you know, face to face? And then just leave online media to news/facts?

Of course you can. You just can't claim to have "a good social media experience" if that's what you're doing (as rg111 did). If you're removing all the social parts from social media then you're not have a "social media experience" at all. You're doing something else. That might be good, and you might enjoy it and find it useful, but it's not sociable if all you're doing is consuming filtered content about a topic you're interested in.

Rejecting the social aspects of social media is, by definition, antisocial. That doesn't reflect on how sociable you are in other contexts though.

You don't have to be social online, but getting angry at people for socializing on a social network is definitely anti-social.

People have spoken over the phone and have had pen pals for a very long time, so "we have come to that" a long time ago.

If uncle Joe keeps talking about conspiracy theories in family gatherings, I'll keep away as much as possible.

I hang withy friends on Discord. we talk daily and game together.

I never implied that being social over social media is wrong.

The GP, however, was implying that by not engaging in social media (or, using your examples, phone or pen pal) is antisocial, which I argue is wrong.

If engaging in social media is the only way to be social — or, to put it another way, if by not using social media socially you’re considered anti-social — then Facebook et al. have won.

Disagree. The commenter above may as well lead a healthy social lifestyle AFK. It's just that he/she does not want to be bombarded superficial stuff. There is already too much information presented to us on social media, one can not humanly consume them all, so might as well focus on content that is actually useful in bettering oneself.

I have the best SO, caring friends (< 5), better than average relationship with parents with no social rivalry.

I just don't buy into the popular culture- soulless movies like Avengers, sports, celebs, TikTok awfullery, virtue signalling, covert racism, keyboard activism, and so on.

I am content with the social media that I use.

I happen to be a good organizer. I organize religious ceremonies despite being irreligious, I organize other socio-cultural activities and actively take part in them.

As I have grown old, I have learned that it is in my best interest to not show my full self by default- I had gotten judged for not conforming to shallow social norms, being an atheist, etc.

And while on social media, I get to be close to my true self.

For people who don't conform with social norms, either for individual traits or other reasons, social media is simply hellish in nature.

This way I can decide whose posts I see, and not the algorithm. Ha, take that! Facebook even displays an error message in your feed if you unfollow everyone :)

Facebook seriously asked me if it was my own account I logged on to. Because, "when people log on to other people's accounts, they tend to log off quickly".

Yeah!

I would love to be part of small social media groups with bonds of friendship and tolerance. Trends, food, non-extreme politics, in proportion to their magnitude in everyone's lives, varying with people's interests but not magnified by one-issue echo chambers. Not 100% sure what you mean by normies but I suspect I'm in favour of them.

Group chats with close friends and family fulfil this need fairly well, and are quite relaxing compared to wider social networking. But they're likely only to cover a small subset of every person's interests. Something like the infamous 'Circles' might actually be useful on a larger scale.

For 3-4 people of my parents' generation, I just call them up once in a while.

Actually, there isn't a lot of an overlap of interests with those of the people I grew up around. I have no interests on sports, celeb culture, etc. And politically, I conform to neither side (although I am not a centrist).

People have said things behind my back and in one particular instance, I have been verbally harassed for not liking the things most people like.

So, I don't bother being "social". I do community service, donate time and money to charities, attend marriages and funerals and such and nod and smile for 1-2 hours. I also mentor 2-3 kids. One is a neighbor, one lives on a different country.

I don't see the point of a "social" media. I just want to be away from most people I know in real life.

I find better solace on anonymous sites like Reddit, HN, or new like-minded people I get to know through interest-based forums.

I do send people pictures of stuff I cook, glasses I buy, etc. tgrough DM.

I also have a private Instagram where I allow about 30 people to follow me.

I would never even think about social media like most people use it.

It would just be nice if the big sites were less terrible. If Facebook were once again a nice place to stay in touch with 'real life' people instead of an engagement-driven nightmare. If LinkedIn could be a wider-professional-interests place with HN-quality discussion instead of just recruiters and drivel. If Twitter remained an amazing place to connect with thinkers but not the place for outraging people into campaigning for someone to lose their job. Because of network effects, the big sites eat up a lot of what should be better discussion.

And while they might not be small, servers corresponding to niche reddit subs might tickle your interest.

In what way are these 'types' equated?

I'm saying this even if I actually do agree with their cause.

In the context of the comment, it seems that they simply do not want political noise in their social network in any form.