Should I join social media to help establish real world friendships?

November 27, 2023 2:21 PM

My real-life social network has taken a beating lately, what with Covid and 2 cross country moves in the last 4 years. I'm in a new city where I know no one (except my husband), and I'm having a lot of trouble making connections. I have a few friends from my prior city that I keep in touch with over text/zoom, but I'm really missing in-person friends and connections.

I'm 47 years old and up to this point have avoided social media. I've never been on facebook/instagram/twitter/anything else. Do you think joining social media would be a way to make some real life connections? I'm not interested in influencers or political arguments or most of the social media/tik-tok links that filter up to my awareness level, but maybe I'm selling them short?

Bonus questions: If you think I should join social media, which ones should I join? Advice on how to use them effectively to promote real world connections/friendships?

posted by my_metafilter_account to Human Relations (20 answers total)

Facebook *used* to be really helpful for this. When I moved across the country in 2008, facebook helped me meet up and connect with two old friends who happened to live in the new place. I hadn't seen one of them since 1989, and the other since 2000, so they were fully expired relationships at that point that we restarted because of discovering we were in the same places. Those two friends introduced me to more friends, some friends from my hometown connected me to other cool mutual friends they knew in my new place, and voila, we had a whole social community in a couple of months. And although my hometown was a midwestern city, the new place was in rural New England, and it still worked. I'm introverted and shy and don't know what I would have done without facebook, honestly.

But I'm not sure it's as useful for this anymore now that they throw all kinds of crap into the algorithm and you never see your actual friends' actual posts anymore. I still might try it -- join facebook, friend anybody you actually remember liking (this is critical, do not include people you used to know but never did like), post enough of your own life that people can see where you are and what you are up to, ask for recommendations and to meet up if you find anyone local.

I think Insta and TikTok are too impersonal/curated to be useful for this kind of activity, and Twitter might have worked once upon a time especially if you have academic or journalist friends, but I don't think it would work anymore. I think facebook might still be your best bet at least if you're old enough (47 should be) that your demographic hangs out there at least sometimes. If not, I don't know -- does anyone still use SnapChat? I think of SnapChat as facebook for Gen Z, but I also feel like no one uses it anymore, and I never did.

If you're female or femme-presenting, I might try Bumble BFF, too. It's being heavily promoted and looks like it might work. If you're Jewish, try the Alma classifieds.
posted by shadygrove at 2:31 PM on November 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

Meetup.com


I've had an idea for a "MEAT-up dot com" song for a while now :) but there are a lot of people who think, I need to meet people [AT ALL SOMETIME] and follow that thought straight to a meetup group like "Sassy women over 40 with dogs hiking only the easy trails" or "Durham improv jam" or "The Chapel Hill laid-back maybe-artists meeting and calling it sketching at a coffee shop group".

There is even a guy who bought a bunch of kayaks at the start of the pandemic, hauls them to a different lake location once or twice per week when he feels like it, and loans them to anyone who signs up in the meetup group.
posted by amtho at 2:44 PM on November 27, 2023 [7 favorites]

I refused to do social media for years and years and years. Then I was forced to have an FB account for theater shows because most theaters now run their show information off the FB pages (they post rehearsal videos, what you need for costumes, post who just got covid, post when you have to arrive early to reconfigure the show because someone has covid...). So I have a theater-only account and um...

Yeah, that helps on the social life. I cannot lie, it does. You hear more about what people are doing there more than you will from them IRL, and you get party invites.

That said, I would say NO WAY IN HELL on X/Twitter these days, and I have Safety Concerns over China owning TikTok so I wouldn't recommend anyone get an account there. And whatever social media you're using probably needs to be whatever your intended friends are using. If that's the 'gram rather than FB, then that's the 'gram. I would say to start joining classes and activities IRL and then ask people you like there what social media they use. After people start friending, then you make comments on what they post, or vice versa, or post invites, or whatever, and it seems to go from there.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:52 PM on November 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

I'm on every website (masochist, i guess) and I hate to say it but I agree that FB is the only one that really helps with in person community. I am part of my neighborhood "Buy Nothing" group and another group that's for general neighborhood announcements. People post nearby community events.

Also many hobby activity meetups are advertised on FB. Compared to other social media, the Facebook algorithm is more likely to show you events that aren't huge or sponsored because it also considers things like proximity and social circles.
posted by tofu_crouton at 3:00 PM on November 27, 2023 [7 favorites]

Same. Facebook keeps me connected to several local communities that I just wouldn’t otherwise. At this point I only really pay attention to those groups.
posted by amanda at 3:22 PM on November 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Yes, Facebook can give you access to groups related to specific interests as well as local neighborhood groups which might give you a way to meet people nearby. Not sure if this is up your alley, but there is an app called Bumble which was designed for dating but has an option to match with people for "just friends"
posted by winterportage at 3:38 PM on November 27, 2023

I never post on NextDoor, am just there for the drama and local news, but mine frequently mentions events like “We need help at this dog shelter” or “Show up at 11am to serve Thanksgiving dinner to the homeless” or “Join our community garden.” So it might be a way to dip your toes into social media and see what’s out there. Some people post so often they treat it like Facebook.
posted by jabes at 4:01 PM on November 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

I dislike Facebook as much as the next person, but it is good for building an online community with your local neighbors. Join a Buy Nothing group, follow Facebook pages for your city/region (hot tip: hyperlocal mom Facebook groups have the REAL scoop on local stuff, if you can ignore some weird gendered/childbearing stuff that also creeps in as a result of Society), follow your local & regional government pages and your local community chamber of commerce pages.

Even if these don’t directly immediately translate into “hey let’s get coffee sometime” it will be a tool to help clue you in to the types of places locally where you’ll find your people.
posted by samthemander at 4:04 PM on November 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Does your town have a subreddit? Worth joining. Sometimes they do in-person meetups, and sometimes there's an affiliated Discord server. Folks off my local subreddit/Discord lent a hand while I was in the hospital last month.
posted by humbug at 4:42 PM on November 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

Back when I was moving every three or four years, Mefi meetups were one of the ways I met people in a new city.

Board game meetups too (mixed success with that one), or meetups for other hobbies (in my case, juggling and unicycling; but really any activity can work here).
posted by nat at 4:54 PM on November 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

FB sucks in many, many ways but it is useful for making local connections. I moved to a new city at age 45 and signed up for the neighborhood group on FB and the Buy Nothing group. Both have been super useful. I started a book club via the neighborhood FB group which has been a good way to make friends.
posted by emd3737 at 5:05 PM on November 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

Meetup.com.is also good. I joined an environmental cleanup group and a Spanish language group, both of which hold in person events twice a week.
posted by emd3737 at 5:12 PM on November 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Lots of social media, especially Instagram or X/Twitter, seems to be good at letting you keep in contact with friends you already know, or good at showing you broad influencer types, but bad at introducing you to people you don't yet know but might become friends with (unless they are real-life in-person friends of your friends). Facebook is a little that way too although as people have said, it may happen to be the place that in-person interest groups local to you are using for social media. Which leads me to...

I have had success in making real-world friendships through connections made online in places tied to real-world activities. Nthing meetup.com as a good option - I fell off on attending events during Covid, as did a lot of people, but the website did make it through and a quick browse does seem to show a lot of active groups.

I've also joined a Discord server for fans of a particular music group, and it's common for people on there to meet up in person for concerts etc., which can then lead to meeting up for other reasons as well. I've met one person from that server in person and would be happy to hang out with others if we were physically nearer to each other. Discord seems distinct from other social media in that it's especially good for real-time group chat in addition to allowing direct messages, so you can kind of get to know people's personalities in a less direct way rather than having to jump right to 1:1 conversation which for me at least is higher stress. The trick seems to be finding those Discord servers, if you don't have a friend in one already - Reddit has a lot of crossover with Discord as someone else has noted, so that's maybe the most likely entry point, although I got the link to my music group's server from a tweet.
posted by sigmagalator at 5:48 PM on November 27, 2023

If you want real life friends then I think the best way forward is to make real world connections. Meetup and Eventbrite are useful sites for finding events that interest you or are geared towards making new friends. Facebook groups and Nextdoor are good for this as well but the signal to noise ratio is pretty dismal. Bumble BFF works well for meeting people one on one.

That being said, I still think it would be helpful to have a social media presence - liking and commenting on posts etc are small ways you can grow a friendship in the early days. Most people I know have both Instagram and Facebook but use one more than the other. Facebook is a great source for hyperlocal news/gossip/events and Instagram is better for following event spaces/organizers.
posted by fox problems at 6:22 PM on November 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

I don't recommend getting on Twitter/X now, but I can share that my connections there absolutely helped me develop friendships in real life. In fact, I think many of my friends and even one or two of my closest friends are people I knew/interacted first via Twitter. I followed local folks with some similar interests, and it grew from there.

The same thing still happens for me on Instagram. I follow people I know and then people with overlapping interests who are local (often friends of friends). Recently I have met in real life people I know from Instagram, when I've been out and about doing a shared hobby. It's also worked that I've started to follow people I've met, and the social media connection has helped grow the friendship. There are folks that I message with on various platforms in addition to texting.

I'm a few years older than you and have built up a good community of friends over the past six or so years, and social media has absolutely been pivotal in that. I'm not exactly recommending it, but it has worked quite well for me. I have also found that introverts and extroverts can be quite active and engaged on these platforms.

I've also connected with folks on Facebook, and it can be useful too.
posted by bluedaisy at 7:11 PM on November 27, 2023

Your cohort is likely very active on FB, much less so on Tiktok, which skews younger. I wouldn't touch Twitter with a ten foot pole these days.

You don't have to passively wait for the algorithm to serve you content from friends, just go to their pages directly to interact with their posts. When joining local FB groups, take some time to understand the posting style and etiquette. To find groups, just search for the name of your town and an activity you enjoy, and join a few. FB will suggest additional similar groups to you as you go along.

I'm sure you know this, but please don't make a big deal to prospective friends about how not-on-social-media you are as a way to explain your lack of tech skills on the platform or whatever. It can come off as condescending to folks who do use and value these sites.
posted by ananci at 5:09 AM on November 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

FWIW all the meetup groups I listed in my comment above actually exist, but with shorter titles.
posted by amtho at 8:49 AM on November 28, 2023

And kayak guy is still doing the group! Even _after_ he got a girlfriend.
posted by amtho at 8:50 AM on November 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Facebook, Meetup, Discord are my primary tools for finding local events for meeting people
posted by Jacqueline at 8:52 AM on November 28, 2023

I'm on Instagram instead of Facebook, and follow a bunch of local artists and theatres and neighbourhood organizations. It's been helpful, not for making individual friendships online, but for finding a bookclub and a knitting circle and a homegrown community through various interest meetups. A bit of unsolicited advice, look local for your new friend group. Like within blocks of each other - it makes a huge difference! It takes time (years for this introvert!) but you'll get there.
posted by unlapsing at 3:26 PM on November 28, 2023 [1 favorite]