I find Discord is a lot better than social media for making connections. As another user said, it started out for me as a topic based platform. I get engaged in communities that are about my interests, and start posting and talking there. From being actively engaged in discussions about a common topic, you gradually start to know who you get along with, who you have other stuff in common with, and now I have several pretty good friends that I have ongoing DM convos with about off topic stuff and our personal lives.

Social media in general I think can be great if you're trying to create or foster community or a brand (as an artist, merchant, professional, etc) but for making one on one connections so far Discord is much better for me for creating actual friendships.

I don't think it's necessary. There's ways to connect with people irl; taking a course for example. I do find social media can be useful for finding people with similar interests, but that doesn't require posting your whole life online.

I think it honestly depends on you and your goals. From conversations around the internet in general I have a theory that there are two main ways to use social media.

• There's user-based, where you're interested in people and the random goings on in their lives.

• Then there's topic-based, where you don't really mind who you're talking to as long as it's about a mutual interest.

As someone who has basically always stuck to topic-based, places like Instagram actually used to be great and I've made some genuinely good friends there. My account was based around a topic, I browsed related hashtags and found other accounts about that topic, and naturally you get to talking with the people you're seeing again and again in the feed for that topic.

Of course, nowadays that's gone from places like IG in favour of seemingly random influencer suggestions and video spam everywhere, so I've moved to Mastodon which I'm using in the exact same way. Using and following hashtags, chatting to others doing the same, generally showing an interest.

It sounds like you're similar to me in that you want to share your art but not necessarily a ton of other personal details. This is totally a viable way to use social media! But to take it from that to making actual friends, you need to do the social part of the social media too. Post in your own unique voice. Find other people in your topic, talk to them like real people, be enthusiastic about the things they share, most of them will end up just being vague internet acquaintances but very occasionally one of them will turn into a real friend and it's so much fun!

I guess what I'm saying here is that it's easy and natural to make friends when you start from a point of shared interest. If you're literally just posting about random things in your day and following people who do the same, there's not that shared basis for a connection.

Ymmv.

No.

I found that "going out of my comfort zone" in this way does little else aside from make me miserable. Social media platforms like facebook and instagram, are designed to push your buttons, and not in a good way.

It's why I was always more comfortable on reddit, where I could discuss things I actually cared about enough to want to do that. And that I was doing so with strangers allowed me to drop a lot of worries I'd have otherwise.

Using platforms with people I know to share things I don't want everyone to know in the first place, just to have social life, is an unbearable chore. One that doesn't even lead to the things one would hope it does.

I've found far greater success in socialising, by just direct messaging people that I think might be worth knowing. And if they are, you'll automatically keep doing that because you want to. Learning to take that first step to say hello, and continue doing so when I actually enjoy my relationship with someone, has been most productive to me.

i did instagram for a while many years ago and it was kinda fun. it is not my cup of tea and it didnt keep me interested for long. but i can tell you that noone cared about me beeing all out of a sudden active online to vanishing again. it doesnt do much for me but i have a friend who has international friends, and social media seems to be a big part to stay in contact for them. i would encourage you to try stuff out, see if you like it or not, and then continue or not. i dont think it is worth to force the use of social media for any reason. and the addiction part is real, and i think its important to check yourself once in a while if your social media consume is high.