The friendship recession | Richard Reeves
The Importance of Friendship
In this section, the speaker discusses the importance of friendship and how it affects our health.
Loneliness and Health
- Studies suggest that being without a close friend or being lonely is as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
- It's difficult to measure friendships quantitatively, making it hard to determine the quality and quantity of friendships. People are also reluctant to admit to loneliness due to its stigmatized nature.
The Friendship Recession
- There is a rise in the number of people who lack close friends, leading some scholars to describe it as a "friendship recession."
- As society changes technologically and economically, paying attention to the underappreciated human relationship of friendship becomes increasingly important.
Forms of Friendship
- Friendships come in all shapes and sizes, formed through various means such as school, work, volunteer activities, sports, and online interactions.
- Across human history, there has always been a tribal size to friendship groups with close friends numbering around three or four.
The Idealized Relationship
- Ancient philosophers took friendship seriously because it is an ideal relationship based on genuine equality without any sense of dependency or exchange.
- Unlike most other relationships that contain some kind of transactional element, friendships are not transactional in any way.
Factors Affecting Friendships Today
- Traditional institutions such as family and religion have declined while geographical mobility has increased. This makes social relationships outside these institutions more important than ever before.
- However, during this same period there has been a decline in the number of people who say they have close friends. Factors such as parenting, workism, and relationship breakdowns can all get in the way of forming friendships.
The Importance of Friendship
In this section, the speaker discusses the downsides of being without friends and how it can affect one's health.
Lack of Access to Opportunities
- Many people get job opportunities and chances to do things through their friends.
- Friends act as a communication information channel.
Effects on Health
- Having friends is protective of mental and physical health.
- Being without friends can make you isolated in an economic or social sense.
- Being without friends can also make you sad, which is bad for your physical and emotional health.
Trends in Friendship Networks
- Today, 15% of young men say they don't have a close friend, compared to just 3% back in the 1990s.
- Back in 1990, almost half of young men said that if they had to turn to someone in a time of trouble, it would be to a close friend. Now that's dropped to about 22%.
- More men (about 36%) say they would go to their parents instead of a close friend.
- The pandemic has been a stress test for our friendship networks. Women have been most affected with more than half saying they've lost touch with at least some of their friends.
Importance of Friendship
- Friendship is incredibly important for human flourishing.
- People are wired to want to be social creatures and make friends.
- It might be harder for us to do so in certain circumstances where we're under too much pressure or where opportunities are not there.
Making Friends
- Friendships don't form themselves; it requires work and effort from both parties involved.
- One necessary step is admitting that you want to make a friend and being open to that.
- This requires vulnerability and revealing a need or desire.
- As we get older, there's sometimes a sense of shame that comes along with not having enough friends.
Conclusion
- Pay attention to these trends and recognize the importance of friendship.
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