I’ve been trying to meet new friends and new people to hang out with so have been going to a lot of social events.
I noticed that everyone seems to ask for my instagram account and when I say I don’t have one that connection kind of dies, and it feels too personal to ask for someone number when I just met them.
I don’t want to create an instagram because of the privacy invasions of meta but I also don’t want to feel left out when trying to make new connections. Anyone have any advice?
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An IG account isn’t a phone number or email, and I think it’s weird that young people treat it like it is.
Just say you don’t do social media, and if they can’t respect that, it’s a quick test as to if they’re your people or not.
It can also be a good conversation starter. Some people genuinely don’t know or care about the social media corporations spying on us. You can have some interesting conversations with them.
Or come across as a weirdo, conspiracy theory, antisocial, tech obsessive nerd.
I mean, it’s not inaccurate, but not maybe how to present initially when you meet someone.
Definitely second date material
Depends entirely on the audience. The problem with privacy issues is that privacy nihilism sets on quickly, and people with short attention spans and no intrinsic idea of how much they’re being ripped off quickly take refuge in the comfort of a no-friction status quo.
That is a good point, when I say I don’t have any social media more than half the time people respect it, almost like I’m saying I’m X years sober from alcohol.
But I still feel like I’m tempted to make an account to avoid this additional social friction. Maybe I won’t use it for anything except getting people’s contact info in these situations. I’m not sure I’m a bit torn.
but that’s a lie bc op obviously does mastodon
This is, IMO, the biggest problem with FB and IG. They’ve replaced personal connections. I know some women who say they won’t date anyone without an IG account.
and it feels too personal to ask for someone number when I just met them
Someone’s number is literally just a series of digits. Social Media has their fuckin’ life’s story. I’d say it’s far less personal.
I think it’s mainly two things:
- people fear reverse phone numbers look up tools more then the equivalent tools for social media.
- It’s viewed as less replaceable then just blocking somone on social media
I don’t really agree with either of these but it is what seems to be common.
Get a new phone number and never sign it up on anything. It is very easy to replace a phone number. If you have had a phone number for multiple years and signed it up multiple times and still using it, it is time to change it now.
Blocking somebody on social media doesn’t really mean anything, they still have your account, can still see your posts, comments, and even liked videos if they use another account. You would have to delete your account if some random person has your personal Instagram that you don’t want anybody knowing, even if it is private.
They both have there downsides though.
Unfortunately I have also found it to be a huge impediment to making friends with other millennials who aren’t techie. I sort of left a crowd that was always on xmpp and signal and found myself rather ostracized. Things are changing slowly and most of them are now on Signal and with the usernames it’s easier to exchange contact without relying on phone numbers that feel like a bigger commitment. But unfortunately passed explaining why you won’t support Meta, and why alternatives like Signal are good there isn’t much to do.
I assume you’re Gen-Z too! Socializing and Dating without Instagram and Snapchat is impossible! Don’t listen to others here shouting “get their email!” “ask them to install Signal!” "ask them to install PixelFed!! “They are not worth your friendship if they don’t want to talk to you if you don’t have Instagram!”. I know the real world ground reality having experienced it earlier, you have no other choice than making an IG and Snap account. Everyone you talk in real life will ask for your “ID” after sometime, which means IG or Snap ID depending on where you live. No “normal person” (as in normie) will install Signal or PixelFed for you. I have studied in 2 separate universities and only knew 3 girls who didn’t have Insta or Snap. The foids who spout nonsense here are millennials who have no idea on how Gen-Z interact with each other or individuals who are too far into the privacy-anonymity spectrum. Anyway, you can take the following steps which will preserve your privacy in IG and Snap:
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Create IG and Snap accounts using newly created emails.
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Use AI generated or heavily AI altered pic as your profile pic in IG. So Meta wouldn’t be able to meaningfully use your photo to train their facial recognition systems.
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If you decide to post photos on Insta, alter them heavily using AI or Photoshop.
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Use ASCII empty characters for your “name” in Insta and Snap. Use random username generators for usernames.
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Keep Bio empty, if it doesn’t allow you to keep it empty, use ASCII empty characters.
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Don’t watch or post Insta reels.
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Don’t like, comment or share in Insta.
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Don’t watch stories in Snap.
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Use open source frontend apps on Android to browse Insta and Snap (I previously used a good app for Insta (I forgot it’s name) which allowed you to control which pages to show. Like you can choose to stop displaying reels and feeds section and make it only to display DM’s. This is very useful if your only aim on Insta is to use it for messaging. It even had a “Ghost mode” which will allow you privately browse Insta without alerting anyone- it’ll keep your online status as “offline” even when you’re online and turns off typing indicators for DM’s and groupchats and you can videocall anyone without showing them you’re online. Like I said, I forgot it’s name, I’ll link it here if I find it).
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“Build a profile”- follow all of your Job/University/School friends. This will make your profile look less suspicious. Remember - It IS suspicious to not have Insta and Snap in this day and age. The fact that you didn’t have both of these apps this far itself will make you look suspicious in the first place. So first build a profile.
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Some have recommended apps like Insular, Shelter and Island to Isolate apps but let me tell you the truth- they will have no effect. Meta and Snapchat will still track and surveil you.
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De-activate account after your purpose is resolved (only on IG) - Deactivate after your work is done. Say like the girl you were talking to has officially become your girlfriend. Don’t do this on Snapchat as Snap doesn’t have separate deactivate and delete account options. Your Snap account will get “permanently deleted” if you don’t re-activate within 6 months.
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Using VPN, TOR and other similar proxies will get your account getting flagged by Meta’s spam filters and you will have to verify your identity via a real-time video verification (which has got scarily accurate in recent years) or submitting a government provided ID. Which is against what you’re trying to achieve. So don’t do that.
Good luck!
This comment is all you need to know about this community! c/privacy is filled with millennials, Gen-X and boomers! There are only a handful of Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha here. I was in the same situation as you 2 years ago and asked advice here and the most upvoted comment was “If you can’t ask for a girl’s number you ain’t got game”. I deleted my original lemmy account within a few minutes then. The Fediverse was filled with Linux nerds who were at the extreme ends of privacy-anonymity spectrum back then. And nothing seems to have changed much after reading all these comments. My original Fediverse account lasted approx. 1 month 2 weeks. Let’s see how much time this run lasts. I already have a lot of complaints regarding the Fediverse. The cons outweigh the pros. I’m not having fun here. It’s only a matter of time till I pull the trigger.
You’re on the ‘privacy’ community of an open source and federated alternative social media system designed to avoid corporate control and surveillance capitalism - and you’re like “wtf everyone here is very privacy focussed and Linux nerds”.
Do you complain about sand at the beach?
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Make a pixelfed, people want to know you we ask for IG
Back when Craigslist had personals ads I answered one saying that I had 10 laptop computers and no facebook account, and I actually got a couple of dates that way. Not everyone wants corporate media.
I’ve been chatting (non romantically) with someone I met on another forum, who is about the same way. No facebook or reddit or anything, not even Lemmy, just a few niche forums.
Privacy is subjective. Use it but dont use it for things you don’t want Facebook to know about. Don’t use it on your phone. Don’t use it on a computer with things you care about. Keep it in a container tab in your browser but don’t keep it open all the time.
It’s kind of a pain but you can definitely be mindful and only give meta crumbs where others are giving them truckloads of data.
Sadly there is a lot of good content on Instagram
Is this an age thing? I’m about 40 and I never had instagram, barely used facebook, and didn’t use any others really. I don’t think I’ve ever had a problem where someone backed out because I didn’t have instagram. But I also don’t have a big group of casual friends, and maybe that would be harder.
Discord sucks, but I’ve noticed a lot of social groups use it. A couple meetups I go to all use it for communication. Maybe that’s more bearable than instagram?
Is this an age thing?
Yup.
An newer humans go for tiktok.I’m in my mid-thirties, and while I didn’t have the Instagram/Whatsapp problem as a late teen / young adult, the pressure to use Facebook was similar. When I decided to close my account, it was almost a social death. My friends organised all their outings there and didn’t want to bother reaching out to me. And many of those who did go out of their way to include me occasionally made passive-agressive remarks about how I was being ridiculous and making their life difficult.
That said, I would have loved being able to just say “I don’t have Insta” when men were bothering me in the street. :-) But I’m sure that wouldn’t stop most of them even now.
Anyone have any advice?
- Ask them for their number, and see how it goes? Worst case, they will say ‘no’, end of the story. Maybe the will ask why you don’t have IG and that will be the start of an interesting conversation.
- Try to meet different kind of people? I mean it seriously. I know a lot of people around me who have IG/Facebook/X and so on but at the same time none of them make it a requirement to use it.
- Use a second phone/number for that crap content only? I barely use my ‘real’ phone (I have nothing installed on it beside what I’m required to use) still I do own a second phone just so I can easily share a number with all the services and various craps that ask for one. It’s a phone I never answer to, despite it being constantly harassed by callers. And that peace of mind (my real number is almost spam free) only costs me the 2€/month (plus the phone, I purchased used). You should be able to do something similar for social networks: have a second phone without anything personal on it, just with IG.
- Accept that you’re doomed to use IG because it’s with those ‘IG people’ and no others you want to spend your time with? I like to spend time with people reading books, it’s kinda expected we indeed read books. Would I not like to read, I would not spend as much time with them.
2€/month
🇫🇷❓
How is having somebody’s phone number more personal than having access to an account where you can see all the photos they take and shit? I’d just ask for their number.
It’s just a perception thing we have, a phone number DOES feel more personal to me, even if most people’s Instagram accounts are even more detailed. In my case, I literally never posted anything on Instagram, so there was nothing to gather about me besides what posts I liked.
Plus some people my interpret asking for a phone number as wanting to date them or smth (although the same could be said for any messaging service tbh).
Anyone have any advice?
Yes: recognize what you’re trying to accomplish and change your actions.
Privacy requires shutting people out of your life. Meeting new people requires letting people into your life.
If people expect that the first “gate” into your life is your social media then meet that expectation. Have a social media presence. Post shit that you want people to see on it.
If you’re afraid of letting the companies that operate social media see your life, examine why. It may be that you’re perfectly fine with the trade off of a limited hang out in exchange for looking normal. Most people are.
It doesn’t have to be instagram. You could have a snapchat or a tiktok or whatever.
I disagree. You are normal if you have social media and not if you don’t?
Dunno man, if people need IG to interact with you and you are not comfortable with it, maybe they are not your people, you know?
Why should one go into uncomfortable territory for others, people should interact from positions of comfort, otherwise its a stretch for one side and just a bad time all round.
One thing is for sure @[email protected] , you will have a harder time, make less connections, but I’m pretty sure the ones you will make, will be solid.
One word of advice as a fellow non-socialmedia-person. If you want to meet new people, make sure you are in the same place at a certain time on certain days. That way people know where you might be during certain hours and that is also a way to make connections. Just be sure you like said place.
Social media is literally normal.
It has gone through a process called normalization in order to become an expected part of social interaction. The op even said that people expect them to have a particular type of account and they feel like not having one excludes them from having more friends.
Yes, you are normal if you have a social media account and abnormal if you don’t.
If it’s such an obstacle for social life, I’d just give in and make an account. Given the alternative is “exchanging phone numbers” (with the intent to text or call, presumably) I’d say Instagram is no worse privacy-wise - both offer absolutely no privacy protection. If a phone number is required to register (I don’t know if it is), I’d get a bootleg sim specifically for it. I would treat all communications on any proprietary platform (even 1-on-1) as though they are happening in public (Twitter-style). Avoid using apps if at all possible as they have more access to your device. If that’s not possible, at least do not give those apps any permissions, however hard they are trying to eek them out of you. Do not use it for anything but chatting with your acquaintances - merely looking at your feed, even without any explicit interactions like opening a post, gives Meta a lot of data about you.
If the connection moves on from “acquaintance” to “friendship”, perhaps try pushing them towards a better platform - I recommend Matrix as it is federated (unlike Signal), and has pretty nice clients/UX nowadays (unlike Tox and XMPP), and is e2e-encrypted (unlike almost everything else).
yeah i feel you. I’m in a band, so instagram is basically a necessity for promotion and communication. getting the word out about shows, other bands will message me for gigs etc
just try to use it a little as possible, and try to lock it down as much as possible in the os. you can do alot in the android app settings.
basically treat it as you would having a conversation near a security camera.
