They’re in Your Group Chat. But Are They Really Your Friends?
The internet, our smartphones and the mechanics of social media have irreparably altered friendship. In late December, Melissa Cabrera was enjoying her day, cooking, cleaning and creating a vision board for the new year. Her friend kept up with her on a video call throughout those activities—for over eight hours.
The 22-year-old Cabrera considers this a “soul-sister type of friendship" that can be traced back to their childhood. Video chatting for hours just makes sense, especially since the pair lives over a thousand miles apart. Technology erases the distances between us.
You can now be closer with people you’ve never even met in person than you are with your own next-door neighbors. You also can maintain dozens or hundreds of weaker friendships, based on lightweight online interactions and not much else. Connecting with people is even easier now, says Katie Davis, a developmental scientist and director of the University of Washington’s Digital Youth Lab.
But managing our many relationships on our smartphones can get messy, she says, especially when different aspects of our lives intersect. “That can cause some anxiety and stress." It isn’t enough to just acknowledge that technology has changed friendship. Friends are the crucial components of our lives.
They offer support when we need it—be it a quick laugh, voice of calm in a moment of stress, or true drive-you-to-the-hospital kinship. We need to keep track of what different people mean to us. Here’s how.
Wall flowers Once a year you get the cheery “Happy Birthday!" posts. Or maybe “HBD" from the more rushed people. What’s true of almost all these posters: You haven’t exchanged three words of real conversation in ages.
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