The birthday problem
Keeping track of birthdays in the digital age
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I’ve always struggled to keep track of birthdays. For one, I have terrible memorization skills. I barely remember the multiplication table, let alone a spread of unique individuals’ birthdates. The second, I’ve developed a bit of a superstition that when I put someone’s birthday into my calendar, that person is no longer in my life by the time their birthday rolls around.
These two factors make it incredibly difficult for me to keep up with the constant cycle of celebrations. Sure, maybe I could keep an old-fashioned, pen-and-paper calendar, but I prefer a day-of notification.
I’ll often use context clues, like conversations I’ve had with friends about upcoming visitors, or even point-blank ask, “Hey, can you remind me when your birthday is?” Anything to avoid putting it directly into my phone, because it’s no fun receiving a friendly reminder about an unfriendly person.
Odds are you’ll end up stepping on someone’s toes at some point for forgetting their birthday. It’s a universal experience we all have to experience at least once. However, if you want to actively prevent this point of conflict, I have a few observations.
Let’s go through the ways you can find someone’s birthday on the internet, should you want to avoid looking like a trash person (me).
Snapchat
I find Snapchat to be one of the easiest places to find someone’s birthday. Their profile will even tell you someone’s horoscope sign, saving you the math if you’re looking for an astrological reading. You can check their profile whenever you like to prepare for the occasion. This banks, however, on both of you still using Snapchat.
Facebook
Facebook is arguably even handier than Snapchat, given that it not only sends you a notification, but writes a happy birthday message for you. You can find multiple birthdays in one place and sometimes are even reminded what age they’re turning, if their settings allow for it. This is a great platform to get a spread of demographics, since Millennials and above still lean toward Facebook. You might run into the opposite problem as Snapchat where you can’t find your younger friends here.
X
An uncommon yet handy one is X, which very clearly displays someone’s birthday on their profile if they allow for it, and also sends a balloon overlay over someone’s bio when it is their birthday. While this probably isn’t the first place you’d go, it can be helpful to verify a date for someone you know is definitely an online person.
Contacts & Reminders
I can’t speak for the Androids out there, but on iPhones, sometimes your phone is smart enough to detect when someone’s birthday is. It then automatically inputs it into the “birthday” space of their contact, allowing you to accept the suggestion so it remains permanently. This is useful for double-checking, but doesn’t always mean you’ll get a notification when the day rolls around. You could put said date into the “reminders” section of your phone if you were interested, but that ends up being a lot of work for each contact you have.
Google Calendar
Ahh, good ole GCal. What would I do without you? My whole life is organized in Google Calendar, so you’d think I’d keep track of birthdays there, too. Wrong. This is the last place I want someone’s birthday, in the event I won’t end up seeing them again when the yearly reminder rolls around. I use this feature sparingly: family members, pets, anniversaries. Sometimes, I’ll put my friends’ birthdays in my calendar a month or so in advance if I feel like it’s safe to do so, but otherwise, it’s a manual entry for me. However, if you’re a fairly normal individual who isn’t superstitious, this is where I’d recommend putting your reminders.
Instagram
This one is difficult. The best way to find someone’s birthday on IG is to scroll through their feed to the previous year to see if they posted about it. (Rough). Sometimes people will repost birthday Stories, which makes it easy to catch onto. I ended up using this frequently for my well wishes. If you’re the kind of person who likes reminders in advance, however, this is not the platform for you. Plus, some people just aren’t on social media that much (can you tell me what that’s like?), meaning you’ll have to be extra diligent during your IRL interactions to remember their birthdays.
HBD!
I’m sure I’ve missed a glaringly obvious platform, but above is the method to my madness when it comes to sending someone a happy birthday message. Ultimately, someone will be wished a belated birthday, and that’s just going to be what it’s going to be. I’m not sure if the excuse, “Sorry! I wasn’t on my phone!” works, but for me, that’s usually why I’ll miss a timely text.
I like to joke with my friends, “You’ll know your important to me if I don’t know your birthday.” Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m off the hook when their birthday does roll around. And this definitely isn’t a hint that I’m progressing one year further into Gen Z-ness. But I won’t fault you if you forget.
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