by Miguel Cavazos

Created on: June 13, 2010

Friendship contributes to our well-being, but it is harder to make good friends than it used to be. Threats and challenges to these relationships are evolving, which suggests people should seek out new friends with more strategy, precision, and persistence.

There is widespread support for the importance of friendship. Friends provide emotional stability that makes obstacles easier to cope with. Additionally, studies indicate health and physiological problems may occur without these relationships. For example, a Carnegie Mellon University psychology study found that the loneliest and most isolated students had weaker immune responses to the flu vaccine. The weakest immune response occurred in students that were both lonely and isolated. (Pressman, S. Health Psychology, May 2005; vol 24. Sarah Pressman, MS, doctoral candidate in psychology, Carnegie Mellon University. WebMD Medical News: "Isolated Seniors Prone to Heart Disease." News release, American Psychological Association.) Other studies link loneliness and lack of social support with increased risk of heart disease, viral infections, cancer, and higher mortality rates.

It is more difficult to make friends than it used to be. Communications technology allows us to become accustomed to less personal (and even anonymous) methods of communication, and there is concern that later generations are less likely to establish functional relationships. Interpersonal relationships at work are less likely to go beyond the office due to increasing job turn-over rates. More professionals are work-from-home professionals, and the economic pressure to have more than one job makes it easier to be “caught up with work”. According to the American Sociology Review, in 1985 the average American had three people to confide in for matters that were important to them. In 2004, that number dropped to two, and one in four Americans had no close confidants at all (Kornblum, Janet, 22 June 2006. Study: 25% of Americans have no one to confide in. USA Today). Large and transient environments that attract especially career-minded people, such as Los Angeles, pose a particular challenge to developing friendship. The self-driven nature of many people that work in L.A.’s media and entertainment industry diminishes at least their apparent concern for others, and people tend to pursue friendship among colleagues with more caution and less trust.

Given the emotional and physiological importance of friendship, and the evolving

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>