

People use social media for different things. I never used Instagram to meet people, personally. I’ve posted art and I’ve uploaded photos just as a way to show long distant friends what I’ve been up to, but those friends and I mostly talked over text so I don’t know if I ever even looked at my DMs.
I do actually think social media has made me bad at talking to people irl though, but for different reasons. The way I made friends on Tumblr was I’d post a character design and wait for someone else who designs characters to comment, and then we’d talk back and forth about our characters for hours.
Now I’m trying to remember how to make friends in person and it’s so much more intentional. You have to actually ask questions and broadcast your interest in people instead of assuming they’re going to infodump on you. You can’t take five minutes to think up a reply because there’s no going afk. You have to have interests other than a gay man you made up.
Pretty sure the “original” meaning of “blood is thicker than water” came later. There’s a popular bit of misinfo that it’s short for “the blood of the covenant is stronger than the water of the womb” but no one can point to a single historical usage of it.
I prefer the version that doesn’t prioritize family ties, but I don’t think it’s the original.