Data from IBOPE and INAF 2012 reveals that, in Brazil, there are approximately 14 million full illiterate adults and a little more than 35 million functional illiterate individuals. According to statistics, Brazil is the third country in the world where users spend the most time online, which more than half of this time is spent on social media. Within this framework, as more daily functions move toward text-based electronic communication, reading literacy becomes even more important for adults who are illiterate or for those with low-literacy levels. Therefore, this research sought out to answer the following question: What kind of experience low-literacy individuals have with the social media and instant messengers usage and consumption? To this end, a qualitative exploratory study was created based on individual interviews with 22 adults with incomplete elementary education. Among the results, it was possible to notice the stigmatization suffered by these individuals due to their reading limitations as well as to some of their strategies to overcome the issue, such as sending audio instead of written messages or posting photos instead of texts on social media. It can be suggested that the new forms of instant communication promote freedom to make mistakes in grammar or punctuation that are often attributed to auto correctors of mobile devices. Another evidence of low-literacy is the laziness to read and write on social media and communicators - what users believe to be big reading are actually considered short reading according to specialists on Functional Illiteracy in Brazil.