I'm really kind of surprised at the reaction you're getting to this, because as much as I don't like or use most social medias (only snapchat), I genuinely don't think people are being anywhere near as shallow as people in the replies are saying. Maybe it's because I'm probably a little younger than the average user of this site, but in my experience you nailed it in the question:
Do people expect you to message and plan to meet up via Instagram DMs instead of texting?
Yes. I can't speak for instagram, but certainly on other platforms, in my circles at least. I've been at university for 3 years and I don't have the phone numbers of any of the friends I've made here - don't get me wrong, we text pretty frequently, but just on snapchat or discord. Literally all of the numbers in my contacts are either for people whom you can't realistically message another way, like the electrician, the vet, your grandma, etc, or for friends I know from years ago before any sort of instant messaging became a widespread thing.
I don't really know why this is what people do, but it is. Personally I like it, because I live in a very rural area most of the year and usually can't receive texts, but I know that's not most people's reasoning. Maybe its that texting costs money whereas messaging doesn't? But yeah, never in my life have I met someone new, added them online, and then trawled through their profile to see what shady shit they're doing - I just want to get messaged or added to the groupchat so I know when events are happening.
I'm really kind of surprised at the reaction you're getting to this, because as much as I don't like or use most social medias (only snapchat), I genuinely don't think people are being anywhere near as shallow as people in the replies are saying. Maybe it's because I'm probably a little younger than the average user of this site, but in my experience you nailed it in the question:
Yes. I can't speak for instagram, but certainly on other platforms, in my circles at least. I've been at university for 3 years and I don't have the phone numbers of any of the friends I've made here - don't get me wrong, we text pretty frequently, but just on snapchat or discord. Literally all of the numbers in my contacts are either for people whom you can't realistically message another way, like the electrician, the vet, your grandma, etc, or for friends I know from years ago before any sort of instant messaging became a widespread thing.
I don't really know why this is what people do, but it is. Personally I like it, because I live in a very rural area most of the year and usually can't receive texts, but I know that's not most people's reasoning. Maybe its that texting costs money whereas messaging doesn't? But yeah, never in my life have I met someone new, added them online, and then trawled through their profile to see what shady shit they're doing - I just want to get messaged or added to the groupchat so I know when events are happening.