Leaving social media and staying connected

[jvnkyard]

Okay this is my first post, apologies in advance if I mess anything up.

I've been very frustrated with fedi for a bit now. I say fedi because it is what I use, but this applies to shortform microblogging platforms as a whole. I feel it's literally rotting my capacity to read and write longer text, my attention span.
I also feel the communities are toxic in the way it's encouraged to pretend and not be real to appease an audience.

As so, I want to leave the platform all together, I have my webpage / blog where I can write longform and still have control as it is self hosted, but I'd be losing the aspect where I'm able to network and interface with other creatures in the internet.

For those of you who don't have social media, or are considering leaving it behind. How do you cope with this lack of connection? How do you interact and meet new folk?

[arcus]

There's a few threads on the topic:
https://forum.melonland.net/index.php?topic=4148.0  https://forum.melonland.net/index.php?topic=1109.0 https://forum.melonland.net/index.php?topic=2814.0

Leave your contact info on Fedi. If any mutuals have contact info in their bios, add them. If someone lists their contact info publicly they expect that people will add them.

If longform SNS is alright: Dreamwidth has an active plural community, no like system, privacy settings, multiple icons, and is focused on longform posts. If you do go with that, you have to be proactive with posting and comments, otherwise there's not much to it.

For those of you who don't have social media, or are considering leaving it behind. How do you cope with this lack of connection? How do you interact and meet new folk?

Emailing posters in the penpal thread and random sites online, joining random servers on Matrix and IRC, joining Pubnix/Tilde communities, through friends of friends, and through online games. It sucks but being proactive is the best way.

[AbsurdPirate]

The only thing I really have that is considered "social media" would be maybe my blog/neocity and discord. I don't really feel like I have a lack of connection online or offline.

Online, I have discord that lets me connect with friends, I don't really engage with these giant servers with 1,000+ members outside of joining events in my niche like game nights on Halo. Mostly it's the tight-knit groups and inner circles underneath the giant groups. We all basically know each other by name (well username).

Offline, I'm probably more connected than ever. I have a dumbphone, and while the texting on it isn't painful I'd still prefer to just call the person, which makes up for it. I also write letters to my friends.

I'm not great at making friend IRL, but I've found it's easier when you aren't constantly looking at a phone to fill boredom gaps.

[alexela64]

I just have friends irl. It's easier if you're in school, but once you have in-person friends you should be able to get a much better idea of what's going on in your community.
I don't "cope" with a loss of connection because I've made effort to connect myself sufficiently offline, so that I'm not experiencing a deficit (i'm not trying to sound assholish with this it's literally just what i did)

by that i mean -- i meet new people by finding out more about my community, going to local businesses and seeing what posters they've hung up, going to the library and local events even if its not something I'm super interested in, not being afraid to say hi to people in public. Specifically events with vendors, or events like public movie viewings, where everyone is united to experience something together.

Concerts are great for this as well, I've made plenty new friends at concerts. And then how do you stay connected? Phone number or email. If that's a deal breaker then I wouldn't want to hang out anyway.

It's easier when you live in a city and when you're out of high school, I will say. The craving for social connection is much easier to fill with alternative methods when you're not super isolated in suburbia, like I was in high school. If you're in high school, the craving for social connection would make sense -- it's what I and a lot of my now best friends experienced during our hs years before beocming part of a larger community.

And when it comes to wanting to meet people online, you can always come back here. I think a lot of us would be happy to connect simply over web revival, I know I would. I hope this was somewhat helpful