What makes a friendship last? | Am I Normal? with Mona Chalabi

What makes a friendship last? | Am I Normal? with Mona Chalabi

Transcript Overview

The speaker reflects on the challenges of maintaining friendships through numerous relocations and explores the dynamics of friendship sustainability, especially in times of isolation.

The Dynamics of Friendship Dissolution

  • Friendships often dissolve due to a lack of opportunities to meet, hang out, and connect.
  • After a year of isolation, some friendships feel strained.
  • Research indicates that we lose half of our friendships every seven years.
  • Despite this turnover, the overall size of our friendship group remains relatively stable.

Challenges in Making New Friends

  • Forming new friendships requires significant time investment.
  • It takes between 40 and 60 hours to transition from an acquaintance to a casual friend.
  • Becoming best friends necessitates at least 200 hours of quality time together.

Insights from Personal Perspective

  • Initiating friendships involves opening windows of communication and investing effort.
  • Effort is essential for making new friends while maintaining existing ones.
  • Distance can strain friendships but reveals those who truly care and remain supportive when needed.
Channel: TED
Video description

Sustaining friendships - and making new friends - can be challenging, even when we know it’s important. So how can we make our friendships last without feeling overwhelmed? And is there a formula to follow for making new ones? To find out, data journalist Mona Chalabi turns to her most trusted sources: data and her mum. Want to hear more from Mona? Follow Am I Normal? on Apple Podcasts: https://link.chtbl.com/AINyta Visit http://TED.com to get our entire library of TED Talks, transcripts, translations, personalized talk recommendations and more. The TED Talks channel features the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and more. You're welcome to link to or embed these videos, forward them to others and share these ideas with people you know. Become a TED Member: http://ted.com/membership Follow TED on Twitter: http://twitter.com/TEDTalks Like TED on Facebook: http://facebook.com/TED Subscribe to our channel: http://youtube.com/TED TED's videos may be used for non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons License, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives (or the CC BY – NC – ND 4.0 International) and in accordance with our TED Talks Usage Policy (https://www.ted.com/about/our-organization/our-policies-terms/ted-talks-usage-policy). For more information on using TED for commercial purposes (e.g. employee learning, in a film or online course), please submit a Media Request at https://media-requests.ted.com