Feeling connected to others is a basic need that is present from birth and continues throughout life, and people are social by nature. Everyone feels lonely at some point. Loneliness is the feeling of being separate or distant from others when you want to feel close, connected, or part of something. Having lots of social connection does not mean a person never feels lonely, but it reduces lonely feelings and helps people get over them more quickly. Being friendly to others, even people you do not know well, is one way to build social connection. Researchers describe learning to form successful friendships as a critical skill for kids, and one they keep using and refining all their lives.
Researchers at the University of Kansas estimated that it takes roughly 50 hours together to move from acquaintance to casual friend, 90 hours to become a friend, and more than 200 hours to become a close friend. In the Kansas study, students took about 43 hours and adults about 94 hours to turn acquaintances into casual friends, and 57 hours for students versus 164 hours for adults to go from casual friend to friend. Not all hours counted equally. In that study, time spent hanging out and joking around counted toward friendship, but hours spent working together did not count as much.
A second finding concerns what the hours are filled with. In the Kansas work, more time talking did not by itself make friends feel closer, but students grew closer through catching up on their lives, playful talk, serious conversations and showing affection, while pure small talk tended to leave them more distant. Researchers who study friendships find that friendship is shaped by how we spend time, not only how much: time at work or school, where people have to be anyway, and shared-interest activities did not clearly make participants feel closer. Friendship is also an investment. Students who turned an acquaintance into a friend about doubled their time with that person and spent about half as much time with other friends, whose friendships did not grow.
A researcher named Hall suggests students may make friends faster than adults because of something about student life, such as the close quarters of college living. It could also be that students overestimate how deep their friendships are. His work rests on earlier studies suggesting that a person's brain can handle only about 150 friendships. A separate, practical point is that many adults find it hard to make new friends because work or caring for family can come first, or because of moving or growing apart. Sometimes the trouble is the setting, not the person: in a place where few people share your interests, it can be hard to find your group.
Researchers Boothby, Cooney, Clark and Sandstrom tested what they named the liking gap in a series of five studies, including pairs of strangers who had a 5-minute conversation with icebreaker questions and then rated how much they liked each other and how much they thought their partner liked them. People systematically underestimate how much their conversation partners like them and enjoy their company. One explanation is that people are self-protectively pessimistic and do not want to assume the other likes them before they find out if that is really true. People also seem too wrapped up in their own worries about what they should say to see the signals of liking that outside observers see right away. After talking with someone new, the other person usually likes you and enjoys your company more than you think they do.
In a study of real college roommates, the liking gap lasted for several months rather than disappearing quickly. The liking gap may keep people from pursuing relationships with others who truly do like them. In the 36-question closeness exercise, partners take turns answering and asking, and spend about equal time talking and listening. Pairs who took turns answering each question liked each other more and felt closer than pairs where one person spoke at a time. The exercise works partly because both people open up at the same time and at a similar pace, so sharing does not feel one-sided, mirroring the gradual getting-to-know-you process that relationships usually go through. A good conversation goes back and forth: share something about yourself rather than only asking questions, and give the other person a turn to talk.
A middle-school study by Echols and Ivanich, published in 2021, used the 36-question exercise in a school. It paired unfamiliar students who met once a month for three months, took turns asking the 36 questions, and built a block tower together. Afterward they felt closer to their partner than to other classmates. The CDC describes school connectedness as the belief held by students that adults and peers care about, value and support them in school. Having a good friend can make it less likely that a bully will bother you. Friends also help us solve problems, work through similar experiences and give emotional support, and they can be role models for coping with hard times.
Researchers at Dartmouth found they could predict who were friends just by looking at brain responses to video clips: friends had the most similar neural activity patterns, then friends-of-friends, then people three steps removed. The study analyzed the social network of nearly 280 first-year graduate students, and 42 of them watched a range of videos in a brain scanner. The similarity in neural responses was strongest among friends and was still evident after controlling for handedness, age, gender, ethnicity and nationality.
The Harvard Study of Adult Development began in 1938 with 724 participants: 268 Harvard College sophomores and 456 young adults from Boston. In that study, people who were most satisfied with their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80. The Harvard study found that close relationships were better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ or even genes. The benefits of relationships can come from anywhere: family, friends, work colleagues, and even small pleasant chats with the person who makes coffee or the cashier at the grocery store. Researchers who study the Harvard group say it is never too late, since many people who thought they were no good at relationships found them at a time they did not expect.
A researcher named Waldinger has a hypothesis about why relationships affect health. His best-supported hypothesis is stress: relationships help regulate the body's stress response. Without a confidant, the body may stay in a kind of low-level fight-or-flight mode, with higher levels of circulating stress hormones and inflammation that can gradually wear away many body systems. Good relationships do not have to be smooth all the time. Some long-married couples bickered, but the arguments did not hurt their memories as long as each felt they could count on the other.
Adults who have strong social connections have a lower risk of many health problems, and older adults with close friends are likely to live longer than peers with fewer friends. The U.S. Surgeon General's 2023 advisory called loneliness, isolation and lack of connection a public health crisis, and said lacking connection can raise the risk of early death to levels comparable to smoking daily.
Toddlers watch each other and play side by side first; later children play together, share ideas and build on each other's play. Children start to build friendships around ages 3 to 5. Children can form simple friendships starting in the second year of life, which begin as a preference for one person and later become reciprocal, give-and-take relationships. Language and communication skills are powerful building blocks of friendship, and as preschoolers' language grows, their play with peers becomes more elaborate.
When friends hurt each other, what helps? In an experiment with 6- and 7-year-olds, children felt better only when the person who knocked down their tower helped rebuild it. When adults ask children to think of other explanations for a hurtful action, such as an accident or a bad day, children are more likely to give the other person the benefit of the doubt. In one study, mothers' calm, sympathetic talk with children about bad moods was linked to stronger self-regulation later, and stronger self-regulation was linked to better peer relationships as children got older.
Being quiet is not always the same as being shy. People who are shy often become really good listeners and are sensitive to how others feel, which can make them caring friends. There is a difference between being introverted and being shy: introverts need alone time, while shyness is about fear of rejection. Backing away from every situation that brings on shy feelings can keep shyness strong, so small steps forward help.
Researchers call keeping up a social life social fitness. Like physical fitness, it is a practice, and tiny actions such as sending a text to someone you miss count. Making friends is not a magic trick. It is something people learn, and it gets easier with practice. Friendships take effort to keep going, and without it friends can drift apart. Being a good listener means asking what is going on in a friend's life and letting them know you hear them. When making friends feels hard, a parent, teacher or other trusted grown-up can help you decide whether someone might make a good friend, and parents and teachers can help a child who finds it hard to make friends. A grown-up you trust can help.
Words to know
- acquaintance: slightly known
- hypothesis: best explanation
- inflammation: body swelling
- confidant: trusted listener
- reciprocal: give-and-take
