Being active on a social network is not the same as having a social life - meet people, make friends, and make an effort to reach out to them. THAT’s having a social life

In this digital age social media apps are part of the social life, if you don’t have them you’re limiting your social life by not partaking in them.

why is that even important?

This is our mentality (privacy loving people).

You need an Instagram account to be a valid human

This is their mentality (mainstream people).

I don’t know which age group you belong to but social media apps are very essential for 18-24 age group to make connections. This is also the age where peer pressure is high and those who don’t partake in some activities get sidelined very quickly. Instagram and Snapchat play a vital role in the dating, no one is willing to share their # anymore. If you say you don’t have Insta or Snap all you’ll get is a weird up to down stare and the words “I’m sorry”.

having a privacy oriented mindset online doesn’t make you antisocial in person though.

Unfortunately, it does. There has been multiple research conducted in this field. Please look up the following for yourself:

“The Social Costs of Privacy”, by Jonathan Zittrain,

“Privacy and Social Connection” by Sherry Turkle.

Link is not working.

Sorry! I’m still new to Matrix so I’m still figuring out stuff. I’ll check what to do and post the new link here.

But maybe that’s because I’m from Germany. Here the concept of privacy is something most people like,

Yeah, being from the EU might be helpful to you since more people are aware of the importance of data privacy thanks to laws like GDPR. But where I live the concept of privacy is alien. Privacy is taboo here and trying to achieve physical privacy itself will be frustrating don’t even get me started on the digital side.