>if you mattered, you would've gotten a direct message or call from them.

That ignores the asymmetry of a lot of life events. For example, if a parent died, I'm not going to call everyone in my life to tell them, I would have more important stuff on my mind. I might post it on social media and then the onus is on other people to reach out to me. And if someone doesn't reach out, it will hurt the relationship a little even if I'm not conscience of it because when I think of people who were there for me during a tough time, the friend who never knew my parent died wouldn't come to mind.

> This doesn't really seem that important if your only method of knowing this was a post

The landscape of human relationships is deep and broad an varied, and if making bold assumptions about what other people should value is your starting point, you're liable to miss a lot of potential connections.

Yes, agreed. For me, quitting social media went hand in hand with a recognition that I maintained superficial contact with a large number of old friends. My relationship with these people was already “illusory”, or at least unsatisfying. Now my relationships are the product of active work, which I find more valuable, even if it means maintaining contact with a smaller group of close contacts (outside my day to day relationships). It doesn’t mean my relationship with old friends and family has died… we just have a lot more to catch-up about when we talk to each other!

Agreed. I also went through it and have found no difficulty with throwing away Facebook, Twitter, etc and sticking to only direct or group messaging.

Some people HAVE gone through the "but I said in X group chat" like above, but it was all unimportant life events that they were happy to fill me in on there instead. All major things people told me directly. Just because I quit social media didn't mean I wasn't aware of the death of my dog from a world away within 2 minutes of it happening.

But it’s also nice to know what’s going on in people’s lives without needing a deep connection...

> a call from them

um... will someone else tell him/her, or should I?

Good thing we have you, hypeatai, telling us who (and who not) we're "supposed" to stay in touch with.