I am continuously astounded by the perceptiveness of some people. Telling a depressed person to "go out (more)" is cute. Not being able to go out as much anymore -- and losing one's social contacts as a result -- is one of the symptoms of depression. People think that if you just go out you'll be fine, while it's the other way around: if you're fine then you'll just go out. If you're sick then you probably won't.
Depression is an illness that causes -- or includes -- "sickness behavior". You can look that up on Wikipedia or you can content yourself with this brief description: A lot of times when you're sick you'll probably feel weak, will want to sleep a lot, will not want to go out, will not eat much, if at all, will not groom yourself as well as you used to, will feel a general discomfort, etc. If you can remember the last time you were sick and subsequently suffering from sickness behavior then you might have an idea of what it's like to suffer from sickness behavior due to depression. It's only a fragment of the whole picture yet it's a start.
Consider this: A man in a wheelchair tells you that he can't reach things on a shelf that can only be reached when standing up. You tell that man to stand up. So that he may reach things which can only be reached when standing up. Seems easy enough and has always worked for you! Maybe sometimes you were "lazy" and you couldn't get up immediately. Yet you managed after a couple of seconds. Perhaps that's even the kind of experience that you're drawing your advice from. Maybe you add "Standing up takes a little more work than sitting around, but...".
I say you've overlooked something in your advice. Do you know what it is?
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