Ok so I as u might have guessed I don’t have any social media accounts (other than like tumblr or Pinterest but those aren’t really the same as insta or Facebook or Twitter lol), nor do I come up when you google me. I had a Twitter and Instagram for like 2 seconds in 8th/9th grade but I got serious fomo and it caused me a lot of anxiety so I deleted everything and never got back into it in high school since texting worked fine and I prefer not to have the opportunity to be nosy and creep on people’s profiles or embarrass myself by posting something I shouldn’t on a whim.
The thing is, I’m worried this might raise a red flag for some people. Not a a big one, but still. I know people use Facebook for roommate selection, and although I’m going the random route, it’s completely reasonable to me that they’d want to look be up before move in. But like I said, I have zero social media presence and don’t come up when you google me.
Tbh I don’t really want to get a Facebook since it would just be a ghost profile and no one really uses it anymore anyways (or at least no one I know). Would my not being on social media be an issue or am I worried for nothing? Anyone else have a similar experience?
It shouldn’t be an issue. Your future roommate may want to get in contact, but as long as your college shares your emails/phone numbers, it shouldn’t matter.
OK, so I asked my 24-year-old colleague (a bit closer to college age/more wired into social media than I am!) and she said her first assumption would simply be that either her roommate’s name was super common, or that roommate had accounts but they were private. She doesn’t think it’s weird. FWIW, I wouldn’t either (I’m 31). I know a LOT of people who have totally detoxed from social media and have no accounts, and I don’t think they’re weird. So especially if you’re emailing with your random roommate and you demonstrate clearly that you’re not crazy, you’ll be fine
I am on social media a lot. I was matched with a (random) roommate who does not use any social media. It’s not weird at all. I never asked my roommate why he doesn’t use social media and don’t really care. It’s a non-factor to me. If someone thinks that someone else is weird because they don’t use social media, then that person has a problem.
My daughter does not use much social media. Her college has a roommate match system and it worked fine. She I happy. You do not needo to use social media if you don’t want to.
I don’t really care if someone doesn’t have social media accounts so long as there are other ways to easily contact them. The more common scenario I see is that people set up accounts but very rarely use them, and in that case I just use some other means to contact them. It’s really not a big deal.
My younger son is in the same boat - no social media whatsoever. And it really isn’t for any particular reason - he’s just not into it. I was worried about roommate matching too.
I’ll never forget when I got my first letter, snail mail, from my freshman year college roommate, the summer before I left for college. We wrote back and forth that summer. We are still friends today, 25+ years later. It is nice when roommates can connect in advance, but email/texting works fine for that too.
The woman I ended up rooming with for all 4 years and stood up in my wedding wasn’t on social media. She ended up making a facebook at some point but might go on once a year.
If someone’s gonna judge you for that, it’s their issue not yours.
I know several college aged and twenty-somethings who refuse to have or have dropped their social media accounts.
Some did it because of privacy concerns and others felt they had better things to do than get and maintain such accounts.
That’s funny considering the people I know who don’t have social media accounts or dropped them are actually much more active and skilled socially than many folks who maintain social media accounts.
It’s not too surprising to me considering they strongly prefer to meet and interact with people in person or as some of my hardcore engineering/CS grad friends/colleagues put it…in “meatspace” rather than online.
I personally don’t contact many people on social media. I have an instagram and snapchat but I don’t really use them (my IG has no pictures). No one from my school really knows about it, but it’s never been a problem. The only real use for having social media is to let people know what you’re like, but you can do that by just talking to them well that and if they find you attractive it’d be a good way for people to look at your face without you knowing, but that’s a whole different topic
