I don’t have a social media pretense at all, and the “intimate” nature of a “raw” group chat has helped me, personally, keep in touch with people I otherwise wouldn’t have.
About 7 years ago one of my college friends drunkenly made a slack group for us all. At the time we were about a decade out of college and have been friends since freshman year. The slack group has been going strong since.
There are times where it goes quiet for a while, then one message will fire it back up. And it’s cool to see it evolve where now we talk about house projects, family things, etc.
We also use it to coordinate times to hang out which e great since we live in different cities.
I also have some WhatsApp groups from other periods of life, but just mentioning the Slack group because it’s something I wouldn’t have thought of and has really helped maintain our connection 20 years after we all met.