Sometimes people I just met (in a platonic context) will ask me things like "hey, what's your Instagram, let's keep in touch!"
My standard answer is that I don't do social media, but I have found that people take it as bragging perhaps? I get answers like "oh, good for you! I wish I didn't" or whatever.
If I say oh here's my number that seems too odd these days, people not that much younger than me (I'm 31) don't seem to text anymore. They use fb messenger or Instagram or others.
Also saying something like "I'm a privacy advocate and I use the fediverse" is also an odd thing to say unless I'm around techy people and even then it's weird tbh.
How do I approach this? I don't think I am better than people that use social media, its just not for me. I would prefer to text but I am not sure that works for a lot of people.
Or should I just bite the bullet and get an Instagram so that I don't seem weird, and then perhaps ask for further contact details via that platform?
Abstaining from social media can be extremely alienating.
autistic btw if you couldn't tell lmao, I have spent a lot of time thinking about this problem
They got discordified and locked up in their gamer messaging apps. It is very annoying to deal with.
I'm neurotypical and I stay away from social media like the plague. I also try to always use FOSS whenever I can. The worst I'll go is using Whatsapp because its the defacto messaging platform in some countries. If you ask people if they have a whatsapp it is very less weird (yay big tech propagandizement).
I try to advocate most for Signal for people I actually want to talk to and as long as I'm not an enemy of the US government (and don't think about supply chain attacks) it works. The people closest to me I'll try to use matrix, jami or xmpp.
Don't get an instagram. Horrible mistake anyone could make.