I'm curios why you are avoiding social media?
How on earth do you get people to talk in IRC? Am I missing something? Almost every channel I have joined is dead silent, and any time I tried starting a conversation I felt like I was asking Lebowski for my money.
You make it sound as if that's undesirable.
Social media is dead, and has been for a while. Many use it still, but it is not primarily social. The social part was mainly a ploy to get peoples attention and then badly abusing it in ever more creative and sinister ways.
EDIT: This comment was meant to be posted to the parent comment!