I’m in a similar boat. I immigrated to Canada back in 2017, and I have a daughter now who is turning five. As of right now Facebook is the single most effortless way for me to stay in contact with my friends and family back home, and allows them to feel familiar with and/or connected to me and my daughter.

That’s exactly what drove me into seeking out Lemmy instead. I hopped on Mastodon and it made me feel like I was being coralled into following some niche hobby forum exclusively, and I wasn’t into that. It didn’t explain that the instance itself was largely irrelevant and that the rest of the platform would open up to me after choosing one.

Lemmy still had a learning curve, but having experience with reddit I was able to pick it up easily enough.

Mastodon overwhelmed me. I hopped on the website and had no idea what I was looking at. I didn’t understand federation. I basically had the option of what niche hobby to join on Mastadon and no indication that I would he able to access a broader forum, so I said “Well, this fucking sucks.” and left.

Threads and BlueSky are likely as accessible as making an account and you’re done.

I miss the format of old forums. I wonder if they still exist?