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.

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.

If they shun you for not having instragram, find better social circles.

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?

Man I'm glad I got done with the "I want to meet new people" part of my life before social platforms became inevitable. As far as I know nowadays it's either friends or privacy. Can't have both

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.

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 sucks, but just ask for numbers or emails

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

I would just make an IG account if it's being a large obstacle, you probably don't have to install the app as you can do most things through the web browser.

Make a pixelfed, people want to know you we ask for IG

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.

What I've done since Instagram is practically necessary for networking at my university, is using shelter for android I have Instagram Revanced in a work profile, and I've opted out from everything possible in the app, which is easy but not simple. I also have my account set to private and no posts, although maybe I'll need some at some point idk. I also have trackercontrol to block trackers, and I use the Facebook Container add-on for Firefox as well as Ublock Origin.

Are you meeting people 15 years ago?? We've known everything mark zuckerberg touches is trying to kill you for money for a long time.

Phone number can be problematic to share in some areas of the world, so it does depend on where you are, but email shouldn't be an issue in general. So easy to get an additional, private email address and use both at the same time.

I also don't have most mainstream social media anymore but have noticed a significant drop in people asking for it these days. Might just be my location in a city with a lot of progressive, tech savvy people, though.

I mostly use phone number and/or Signal these days.

Don't worry, I handed out my Instagram to some people who requested it and those connections fizzled out just as easily.

Could be down to me only ever checking it on a designated laptop once a week, but in my opinion, if it comes down to an Instagram account and regular app access, can't even exchange SMS numbers to text, then it's already a tenuous connection.

Funny enough, I didn't even make my own Instagram account. My friend really wanted me to be on Instagram so he went ahead, made it under my name, and handed me the keys. You probably can't do this nowadays due to security checks, unless you're Meta making a shadow profile kinda like my friend did for me. I'm just sitting on the shadow profile that would exist anyway, trying to contribute as little as possible.

What about email? Just create a new one just for this stuff. Go back to giving out just an email. Everyone has one of those too and it's not as 'archaic' as a phone#

same, i just say I don't do instagram and tell them my local whatsapp equivalent's id or phone number. I've tried using instagram a few times but it can't be used anonymously at all.

Gonna be real with you, if you're in the US and wanna connect with pretty ladies you pretty much have to have insta or messenger. If they are devout apple heads they might wanna do iMessage but as I don't use apple products I can't speak to that. I personally don't want anyone to have my phone number. I have signal, messenger, whatsapp, Kik, WeChat, and discord because I travel a lot and I have contacts on all of them. People prefer social media so they can remember you, your interests, things you say publicly, and use that to help decide if they wanna hang.