References to social media in contemporary movies, whats worse?

I think you just need to incorporate current life. People ask all the time about movies where there were no cell phones to call for help. That would destroy the plot of a bunch of 70s and 80s movies, had the character just had a cell phone, but it didn't exist then. Same thing with ppl using pay phones. Just stick to what is current and ppl will remember the time period.

There are plenty of modern movies and TV shows that don't incorporate social media into their scripts. Most, in fact. If they need communication by smartphone they just use calls or texts. You just need to decide what works best for your story. The other thing is that by the time a script gets made (unless you are shooting it yourself soon) it can be 5, 10, 15 years later and scripts are always updated. I wouldn't worry about it.

You could just refer to social media without actually naming the app.

>that would date the film Why is that a problem? I really don't understand the mentality of not wanting a movie to "be dated". They are products of a time and not monoliths to be relevant forever. Nobody who's opinion is worth a grain of salt cares about an old app or piece of tech in a period correct movie. This is silly. Nobody watches The Matrix and says it's dated because Thomas Anderson uses a Nokia slide phone. Having fake apps, or going out of your way to not have those things at all is infinitely more distracting.

I honestly don't see the issue with movies being "dated". Some movies benefit from there being no clear time setting, but that's not needed for every film.

Why does social media need to be mentioned at all? Does it advance the plot in some way? You mention omitting it would be noticeably absent because social media is a part of our daily lives. Pooping is part of our daily lives. And pooping is probably more ubiquitous than social media use. Will your story have scenes of the characters pooping? It would be strange to omit that.

whatever feels natural

If it's a major plot point, better to invent a platform that you can manipulate to what suits the story that you can show the interface of/show how the platform works. If it's not important to the plot, just use regular socials. Everything becomes dated the moment you write it. I would be surprised to see a story set in 2026 with teens that doesn't reference some social media use.

Honestly, Id go hybrid create your own platform (names, UI) but borrow familiar patterns. Viewers get it, film doesn’t instantly age

The best you can hope for is to trap a time period in a bottle so it is forever associated with that movie.  The hard part is how accelerated the culture is so what you write on Monday is passé on Friday. I do know the details of social media won't make or break any movie. 

Well that depends on the vibe for the script. Is it like Heather's where they made up their own Jargon to be both timely & timeless. It could be done if the movie has an air of unreality like Forbidden Fruit did.  You could limit the comments to a generic "online" or "groupchat" as a compromise. 

Every Kdrama I’ve watched uses fake social media to avoid trademark/licensing issues.

There are a lot of video essays about it on youtube, particularly in reference to BBC Sherlock. I suggest watching [them](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFfq2zblGXw) for inspiration. Ignoring it without a real reason is kind of outdated, because then you get characters having communication mishaps they have no real reason to have. Basically the point they make is that overt depictions of websites and messaging services date a movie/TV show. They think that BBC Sherlock solved this issue by having text pop up in nondescript sans serif text, formatted like text messages (so some text in a cascading block on the left and right) without using dated UIs, and without having to cut to a view of the screen.