8 Ways to Stay Connected to Friends Without Social Media

Last week I mused about whether or not social media is indispensable in maintaining contact with others. Though I’m not a heavy user of Facebook (the only social media I am on other than Pinterest), I’m reluctant to delete my account because I fear I will grow completely unaware of what is going on in the lives of my friends.

Thank you to those who chimed in with tidbits from your experiences on and off of social media. I appreciated your thought-provoking insights. Today, as I continue considering the possibility of deleting my Facebook account, I’m going to share some ideas on how one might maintain contact with friends and family members without the use of social media.

How to maintain contact with friends without social media

Text messages

To me, sending text messages seems like the easiest approach to maintaining contact with friends in the absence of social media. It takes very little time to send text messages, you can send messages to multiple recipients at once, and you can include things like pictures and short videos with your messages.

Phone calls

Phone calls take a little more time than text messages, but they are also very helpful in maintaining contact. They generally allow for deeper conversations than text messages and they allow you to hear things like tone of voice, which is helpful when trying to understand how a person is feeling.

Emails

Email is an extremely versatile tool for maintaining contact. You can send short emails or long ones. You can email one recipient or several. You can attach documents and photos to your emails. Additionally, most individuals access email on their phones, which means they see emails soon after you send them.

I’ve heard some individuals suggest that you create a designated email account to use for communicating with friends and family members. This means you’ll only receive their messages in the inbox instead of the messages being intermixed with work-related emails and ads from every retailer from which you’ve made a purchase in the last decade. I think this could be very helpful!

Videoconferences

Videoconferencing tools (Zoom, FaceTime, etc.) have grown in popularity because of the COVID pandemic. However, their utility extends far beyond facilitating meetings while social distancing. They are sort of like a cross between a phone call (discussed above) and an in-person meeting (discussed below). Unlike many other forms of communication that only allow you to share about an event after it happens, videoconferencing provides friends and family members an opportunity to participate in activities (birthday parties, baby showers, weddings, etc.) in real time.

In-person meetings

Though not as helpful for long-distance friendships, in-person meetings are so beneficial for staying in contact with friends and family members who live locally. In-person meetings allow you to do things like hug, which certainly can’t be done over the phone or computer! Likewise, your communication is enhanced by being able to see body language and facial expressions when meeting together.

One thing to keep in mind is that in-person meetings can take many forms. I know I sometimes opt for communication over email or text messages even when a friend lives nearby because it’s easier. I don’t have to worry about if my house is clean before someone comes over or if I have money to participate in an activity with someone. In-person gatherings can be quite simple. Things like meeting at a park for a walk or for the kids to play, having coffee together on the porch, or meeting up at the library for a few minutes while you both gather books are all easy, yet meaningful ways to get together.

Letters

Though it takes a little more time and effort than text messages or email, sending letters is an effective and very personal way to stay in touch. Most of us don’t receive many letters in the mail, so we take note when we do! Letters can be long or short, we can send pictures with letters, and we can ask a variety of questions in letters (hoping, of course, that our recipients will reciprocate).

We don’t have to limit ourselves to letters. We can also send cards, postcards, and even an occasional care package or gift!

Newsletters

A convenient way to communicate a lot of details in a small space is by sending a newsletter. We can send digital newsletters by email or printed newsletters by regular mail. Either option provides the opportunity to share what is going on in our lives in an easy-to-read format.

Of course, not everyone may be interested in receiving a newsletter, so it’s a good idea to check with friends and family members to give them an opportunity to “opt in” or to provide an easy way to unsubscribe when you send your first newsletter.

I used to send a newsletter each year at Christmas, but I stopped doing this because I was receiving very few cards and even fewer newsletters from others. I assumed this meant that they weren’t interested in hearing from me in that way. However, I now realize that this may simply indicate that they were uninterested in sending their own cards or newsletters. I’m now considering reinstituting the practice of sending an annual newsletter.

Blogs

A personal blog can be kind of like an ongoing newsletter. Though I write about a wide variety of topics here, there are many individuals who use their blogs as a way to chronicle their daily activities so loved ones can keep up with them. Various platforms and tools allow for privacy settings that bloggers can use to limit who sees their posts (for example, readers may need to have a password to gain access). This means you can pick and choose who sees the content you share.

Final thoughts

I don’t think there is any groundbreaking information here, but it is helpful to me to remember that there are a number of different tools I could use to stay in contact. There are a couple of things that I think would be helpful to do when planning to use these tools:

• Get/share contact information before deleting accounts. In order to utilize these alternative methods of communication, we need contact information for our friends. Before deleting any social media accounts, we should be sure to share our email addresses, phone numbers, addresses and any other relevant information with our friends. Likewise, we need to get their contact information.
• Put communication reminders on the calendar. It’s not unusual for us to get so busy with everyday life that we forget to contact our friends. One of the easiest ways to combat this is to put reminders on our calendars. Doing this will help us remember to check in periodically to see how they are doing, to call on their birthdays, etc.

What are your favorite ways to maintain contact with friends and family members? What approaches seem to work best?

Shared at the following:

Encouraging Hearts and Home, Over the Moon, and Busy Monday.