Has anyone been to uni without Facebook?

Hi everyone,
I'm going to uni for freshers very soon and wondering how necessary it is to set up a Facebook account. I've never had Facebook and having gone without it so far, I want to avoid it, if that would be reasonably practical (particularly as I know it's pretty hard to delete once you have it as people start to rely on it as a tool for contacting people). However, I know that people from my college are already on a group chat, and I don't want to miss out on the social aspect early on. (I'll be living in halls, so I know I'll still meet people.)

Has anyone been to uni without having Facebook? How did you find it? Do you feel you missed out on clubs and societies and social invitations?
I'd love to hear your experiences and which uni you go to.

Pretty sure you need a face and book to attend university.

Duh!

You can avoid it, but you may miss out on certain aspects of uni life.

For example, many clubs and societies tend to have facebook groups or pages where you can get up tl date news about events. It is also easier to make or connect new friends via Facebook. Finally, you can also "stalk" people and know what is generally going on.

Dont be alarmed, there are kids who dont have facebook and still live a generally ok existence

I don't want to say it's strictly necessary, but not having it will make your life a hell of a lot harder if you want to do anything which isn't with your immediate friend group (where you might be able to get away with whatsapp).

As someone who needs to contact people fairly often and somewhat urgently, it's an absolute pain if I can't contact my target audience on facebook, and I'm one of the few people in my position or similar who contacts people by means other than facebook. It makes my job to recruit people harder, and it means you're more likely to miss out on events that I'm trying to put on for your benefit.

So basically, if you don't have facebook and want to get involved with uni life, you better go to every meetup of the societies you go to, and check your email, texts and whatsapp regularly (as in at least every hour or two during daytime, 8ish-6ish), if you don't then you will have problems keeping up with what's happening.

I had it for many years before uni I didn't use it at all but it became a must at uni - useful for staying in contact with friends from halls, course, sports etc and keeping up to date with events

It really depends on how in the loop you are with other people.

For about half my time at university, I didn't use my Facebook and left it deactivated. I know others who have outright never touched it, and they've had a great time at university with little to no hindrance to their social life. However, their group of friends communicated via means other than Facebook. I'd like to think most people would too. i.e. Word of mouth (Whatever happened to that old technology...?), Texting, calling etc.

Really good question, I'd like to know too.

Thank you! I want to make the most of it, rather than have an ok time.

Thanks!

Thank you.





Thanks for the replies everyone. I think I'm going to set up an account, even if it's just for the first month or two to get to know everyone!

You will irritate everyone when they can't get in touch with you via the platform everyone uses, or when they set up a facebook event for everyone and then have to go out of their way to contact you separately because you had to be difficult.

Did you forget that we have mobile phones?

or when they set up a facebook event for everyone and then have to go out of their way to contact you separately because you had to be difficult.

Right, so what's going to happen is they're going to invite 100 people to whatever it is with about three clicks and a tiny bit of typing, and then go to the effort of picking up their phone and making a specific phone call to you personally, because you're that special.

I don't understand why you'd make not having facebook into a matter of principle. Just get one, it isn't hard.