online friendship benefits essay

Know the benefits of Online friendships

Online friendships can provide equal love and support as real-life friendships. Building online friendships is not intimidating if we tread safely says Dalilah Anna

The internet has opened up countless possibilities to our society, including building friendships online. Social media and smartphone apps have made it easy to meet new people and stay in touch with our loved ones. 

The pandemic is a rough time for everyone globally. Many people are suffering from loneliness issues, particularly the elderly, young people and those who are suffering from chronic conditions. Those who have been isolated are missing in emotional support and human interaction. Due to restricted social interactions, meeting new people and making friends have become more challenging during the pandemic. 

During these stressful times, it is still possible to reach out and connect with others via virtual events and online communities. Making friends online can be rewarding as you can expand your social circle.

There are numerous benefits of building online friendships. Here is the list of benefits:

Meet People With Similar Interests .

Simple as it seems, having a mutual hobby is the best icebreaker towards starting a new friendship. The secret to striking an interesting conversation is to talk about the things you have in common with each other. That way, the discussion will never go boring, and you won’t run out of topics to say. 

Moreover, it is crucial to have a robust support system that shares the same passion for motivating you to achieve your goals. For instance, your hobby includes preparing healthy meals and staying fit. Surrounding yourself with people who have the same interests will motivate you greatly to achieve your goals.

Online Friendships Are Great For Introverts .

Making friends online is a good start for those who feel uncomfortable or shy in approaching a group of people. Sending chat messages allows users to communicate passively without feeling the pressure of real-life daily conversations. Hence, they don’t have to worry about being tongue-tied and stuck in awkward conversations. This makes online friendships highly beneficial to introverts as it helps to boost their confidence in communicating with new people. 

Share Feelings and Thoughts Without Judgements .

Striking up conversations is easier virtually compared to talking to strangers face-to-face. In virtual communities, people are more open to sharing their emotional and personal struggles. Psychologist Leanne Hall says this is because there is anonymity surrounding online presence, which enables people to feel more comfortable sharing their problems with others with similar issues. By opening up more to others, people will slowly build trust and feel less awkward with each other. Author of Unlonely Planet, Jillian Richardson discussed in her article the importance of allowing vulnerability to cultivate deeper friendships. Being vulnerable will enable people to connect on a deeper emotional level.

Make Friends Throughout the World .

Living in different parts of the world can be a huge disadvantage to some people. After all, it is impossible to meet and hang out physically. However, this issue is no longer a barrier with the evolving social media. 

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It is a good learning experience as you learn different cultures directly from the locals themselves. If you get a chance to travel to their countries, you will gain a rewarding experience by visiting the historical places and trying out the local cuisines. In addition, you will get to learn a new foreign language through virtual international friends. Having virtual international friends is the best chance to acquire a new language because it allows you to practice in a more relaxed environment compared to learning in schools.

Online friendships can provide equal love and support as real-life friendships. Building online friendships does not have to be intimidating if we practice staying safe online at all times. It is vital to stay away from the stigma surrounding online friendships so that we can build meaningful friendships with people from all around the world.

Any book that assists a kid with shaping a propensity for perusing, to make perusing one of his requirements, is really great for him.

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It sure caught my attention when you said that online friendship is good for the health of the person because it gives the person an opportunity to make friends and receive support that they find hard having in real life. If that is true, then I guess there really is no reason for me to stop my sister from trying this online friendship thing. She finds it hard to make friends in real life, and if this will help her, then she should go for it. Thank you for sharing.

The value of online friendships and how they compare to 'real' friends

Topic: Friendship

Are these two better friends than the people they're messaging on their phone? ( Unsplash: Kevin Grieve )

There's a woman in Spain I've never met who has a lot of dirt on me — perhaps more than some of my "real" friends.

We met via Instagram two years ago after bonding over a hashtag and have been chatting ever since.

While I couldn't have predicted my inappropriate and mostly unfunny use of emojis would bring me close to a perfect stranger thousands of kilometres away, it's not an unusual relationship in 2019.

Most of us have online connections of some kind, and increasingly many that are exclusively virtual.

Are we placing too much value and trust in people we've never seen in the flesh? Or is a good mate online as valuable as those IRL?

Content — a new ABC vertical video series — explores this with its lead character Lucy Goosey, who experiences some of the tensions between online and offline friendships while chasing influencer fame.

I spoke to a couple of experts and someone in the same boat as me to get their take.

Why we love our online mates

Oversharing with my Instagram friend instead of friends IRL wasn't planned — it just kind of happened.

Lucy Good from the Sunshine Coast credits that to the availability of online mates.

The 44-year-old runs a Facebook page designed to support single mums, with 16,000 followers. To help run the page she recruited 14 women to help with the page admin.

Despite having never met them, Lucy's grown quite close to the group she calls her "admin sisters".

"We all want to support single mums which makes us quite similar," she says.

"And whereas we don't allow venting or man bashing in the group, when it comes to our little group, we're the first people we go to with our problems."

She says her internet friends are nearly always reachable.

"You have them there at your fingertips all the time," she says. "But it's also OK to leave the conversation and pick it up again when you're ready."

Lucy Good has made many close friends online since starting her Facebook support group. ( Supplied: Lucy Good )

She describes the friendships as "very special" and lower maintenance than friends you need to physically see — it's all part of the appeal.

"You can just send a message out, if they are there, great. If not, it's fine. It's easier to maintain," she says.

"The only thing we miss is the contact, the intimacy of touch and cuddles, but we can make up for that by sending love heart emojis!"

Psychologist Leanne Hall says an element of anonymity online can make it easier to share parts of yourself you might otherwise find difficult.

"It means people can often open up a bit more," she says.

And there are many more connection options to find when using the internet.

Lucy says making friends online has taught her how to "connect differently and with different people".

"You are connecting to people you would perhaps not usually meet in real life … and that can be quite life-changing."

What's missing with online friendships?

Love heart emojis might make up for a lack of affection in Lucy's book, but what about all that other stuff physical connection brings?

Ms Hall says "in real life" you know a friend on a more emotional and connected level.

"You have the benefit of seeing body language and facial expression. A lot of how we communicate is non-verbal," she says.

Julie Fitness, professor of psychology at Macquarie University, agrees those lacking cues can make the friendship less rich. She adds you're relying on the person to "curate" an accurate representation of themselves.

"There are a lot of cues you can't share [online] like tone of voice, observing you interacting with your parents and other friends," Professor Fitness says.

"If it's exclusively online … you are curating the information you are communicating.

"You have an opportunity to put out your best self or only communicate things you are comfortable with."

How to make your online relationships meaningful

Just like real-life friendships, you have to put in some effort to really make online connections valuable. ( Unsplash: Daniel Korpai )

Be vulnerable, but careful

To help avoid only showing your best self, which can lead to a "shallow" connection, Ms Hall recommends being as open and honest as possible.

Don't just show the "highlight reel", she says.

"If you want a deeper connection online, it has to be a vulnerable connection, you need to be honest and embrace the fact that life is not perfect, and encourage the other person to do the same thing," Ms Hall says.

But make sure you trust who you're engaging before you get deep and meaningful.

"It might make sense to be more revealing and vulnerable [to build those online friendships], but you have to be so careful about who you're doing that with," Professor Fitness says.

"You can experiment with making yourself a bit vulnerable, and if there is disclosure in return and warmth and empathy, then the friendship may develop.

"Trust is a huge factor in online relationships because people can be deceived online ."

Choose people you share a common interest with

Finding friends online through an interest group will help set you up for success, explains Professor Fitness.

"You're more likely to meet someone as it's about sharing values and fun.

"This is why those online support groups can be really supportive [for example] because you know that people are understanding of your situation and they're warm and sympathetic to you."

And make sure they're as into the friendship as you are — there needs to be mutual interest and effort.

"A friendship you put as a seven out of 10 on your scale of closeness might be a nine out of 10 in the eyes of the person you are communicating with," Professor Fitness says.

Assess your needs and capacity to invest

Lucy says a real trap is biting off more than you can chew and consequently feeling drained or letting people down.

"There are many people who are isolated and wanting to connect, and if they see you are happy to be their friend they will jump at the chance," she says.

"Don't give them hope if you can't give them the time they deserve."

Professor Fitness says being on the same page about expectations and setting boundaries can help with this.

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Face-to-face connections still important

Ms Hall believes you can live without online friends, but you shouldn't live without those you can spend physical time with.

"The benefit of online comes in when they are in addition to real-life friendships, not instead of," Ms Hall says.

But research shows for people who are isolated , such as those living in regional areas or some older Australians, online connections can be a lifeline.

"The internet is really useful for keeping in touch with family and grandchildren," Professor Fitness says.

To be "really functional" though, you need both.

"You need the face-to-face friends, as well as the wider social networks," Professor Fitness says.

"When looking for a partner, for example, that's a really optimal time to have a rich and broad social network."

Lucy says it's important to support your online friends in the same way would any friend.

"Laugh and cry with them — you can still do that online. In that respect it's the same as a normal friendship."

How to Make Friends On the Internet

by Sulagna Misra

Summary .   

The internet is deeply interwoven into our everyday lives. More and more people are using social media to share their work, explore the work of others, and even make meaningful friendships. Here are some dos and don’ts for (safely) making friends online:

• Do: Choose the platforms and communities that you care about. Don’t: Be everywhere.
• Do: Be kind and compassionate. Don’t be super honest (like in a mean way).
• Do: Connect with people you like. Don’t: Connect with everyone — especially the haters.
• Do: Build on connections that bring out your best. Don’t: Engage with people who bring out your worst.
• Do: Be open to making plans to hangout online or in-person. Don’t: Think that because this is someone you met online, the friendship isn’t important.

Have you ever made a friend online?

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Online Friendship Essays

The meaningful impact of online relationships on everyday life, popular essay topics.

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Online Friends vs. Real Life Friends: Similarities, Differences, & What Makes Them Great

Your online friends are real friends, but there are a few ways social media friendship is different than regular life.

Kate is an experienced writer who has written hundreds of articles for publication.

Learn about our Editorial Policy .

If you're like many of us, you've made some very significant online relationships over the years. Are online friends real friends, or are they something more superficial? It completely depends on the depth of the connection and how you define a friendship.

When Is Friendship Real Online or Offline?

Back in elementary school, you probably had a simple definition of friendship: someone who was fun to play with and nice to you. As you get older, the definition gets a little more complex.

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Online or offline, a friendship involves choosing to meet each other's emotional needs. The American Psychological Association (APA) adds that friends often have common interests and a long-lasting relationship.

For this length and depth of connection, you need to share yourselves with each other and be open and honest. This can happen whether you're sitting face-to-face in your favorite coffee shop or dropping each other DMs on Instagram. Online friendships and real-life friendships have tons of things in common.

Real Friendships Focus on Similar Interests

It's easier to make friends with people who like the same things you do (just like it was back on the playground). Your common interest, whether it's photography, music, pets, kids, or anything else, gives you a starting point for conversations. This is true in person and online, but it can actually be easier to find people with common interests online.

Friendships Happen by Choosing to Be Together

Real friends choose to spend time together, whether that's time playing frisbee golf at the park or time chatting online. Friendship is voluntary. You're together because you want to be.

What about a work friendship where you're together for a job (remote or in person)? In this case, the choice is sharing yourselves with each other and spending time together when you're not actively involved in a work task.

Online or Offline, Real Friendships Involve Vulnerability

Just as in any relationship, friendship involves emotional risk. You're choosing to be close to someone, which means you might get hurt. This openness and vulnerability is important to deepening your bond, whether that happens on your phone or at your favorite restaurant. In some ways, it may actually be easier to share deeper parts of yourself online, but it can also feel less risky emotionally because of the distance.

Friendship Involves Emotional Support

When you're friends with someone, you can count on them to have your back when things get hard. If you're sad, stressed, going through a break-up, or dealing with a loss, the people you turn to are your friends. That's because they offer emotional support. It's just part of being good friends .

This is true of social media friends, as well as in-person friends. If you turn to one another in times of need, that's a sign of a real friendship.

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Online Friends vs. Real Life Friends: How They Differ

Even though online friends can be real friends, there are some important differences between friendships where you interact through a screen and those that happen in your real life.

Online Friendships Require More Commonalities

In real life, you can share one interest (say mountain biking) and use that as a starting point for your relationship. After you do some biking, you can grab coffee and chat. The more you do that, the more shared experiences you have together to grow your friendship.

When you're friends online, it's harder to build new shared experiences together. Instead, you may need to start with several important commonalities.

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It May Be Easier to Open Up With Online Friends

Because of the distance that comes with communicating through a screen, many people find it easy to open up emotionally online. That can lead to deep friendships because you're being vulnerable. At the same time, having the distance between you can also reduce some of the vulnerability and create a lack of intimacy.

Social Media Friends Can Conceal Flaws

In a real-world friendship, we can't always hide those annoying habits or dorky things we might do. On social media, on the other hand, friends can share the best details of their lives without revealing the things they'd rather not have seen. This is one of the potential disadvantages of online friends, and it means that you may not always have an accurate view of what your friends are like.

This can be too in real life as well, though, so it's best to simply use your instincts to determine how well you know your friends.

Are Online Friends Real Friends or Something Else?

Every friendship is different, but if your online friendships feel like real friendships, they probably are. Your friends on Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, or wherever you interact online can be just as significant as real life friends, and no matter how you know them, your emotional connection to your friends can be very real.

Do Online Friendships Differ From Face-to-Face Friendships?

Will online friends make the face-to-face cut.

Posted May 29, 2020 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

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A lot of us had been reaching out to solidify connections with our support networks as we navigated our own personal lockdown living. Some of us also probably turned to the vast pool of online support options, as many of us felt the need to create a safety net or wider array of social and emotional support options.

When we’re faced with a crisis, one of our first responses might be to seek our support—there’s logic behind the saying, “There is safety in numbers.” It’s human nature to create and rely on a social support network and with the internet, we’ve been able to reach out to people around the globe and share our experiences over the past months.

Some of these relationships may have “heated up” due to the crisis situation we found ourselves facing. As we begin to acclimate to the new routines and work arrangements we’re entering, we may be wondering about our ability to maintain these close connections—as well as wondering about our interest in maintaining them.

What Makes a Friendship?

For any relationship to count as a friendship , several factors must be present. These include mutual affinity, mutual respect, and reciprocity. The most basic purpose of a friendship is to provide support, similar to family relationships in the best of circumstances. However, friendships are unique in that they are totally voluntary relationships—you can’t make a person like you or want to socially engage with you if they have no interest in doing so.

The three most common “motivating factors” for friendship development include shared interests, shared activities, or proximity. However, we also tend to subconsciously measure the potential “value” or “appropriateness” of a new friend by things such as their appearance, their status, their values, and their similarity to ourselves.

Our face-to-face social lives tend to be more conscripted by these factors than they do in our online lives. When we’re in an online environment, we tend to focus on individual qualities and experiences than these more culturally-bound or culturally-influenced factors.

It’s usually pretty easy to build an online support network through formal and informal pathways, whether you’re seeking advice on a particular topic or responding to others’ posts or to those who respond to your own social media posts.

In an online environment, we are typically seeking out people who share our hobbies, interests, or experiences. We want to connect with people who reflect our passions or our feelings about topics that we value, such as social issues, political issues, or contemporary culture. We also like to connect with those who are experiencing the events or transitions that we are experiencing, such as new mothers and home bakers. We also connect over hobbies, such as fellow kayakers, armchair travelers, or Disney World fans. Health and personal challenges also lead us to reach out to those who are facing similar things, such as 12-step groups or disease/illiness-specific support groups.

While few of us are actually going to meet up with online friends/real-world strangers, there is less concern about “how others see them” and more about what they mean to us and what we gain from the relationship. In addition, the more time we spend with someone, the more likely we are to begin to “like them” and feel a connection. If we visit an online support group or online chat group on a regular and consistent basis, the more likely we are to begin to see the group members or chat partners as “friends.”

Dark Secrets May Be More Easily Shared Online

Another benefit of online friends is the freedom we feel to share information with those that we are unlikely to ever meet in person as we don’t fear later shame or that feeling of “retroactive embarrassment .” It’s like the willingness to share more personal information with others in stalled elevators or in happenstance transient friendships that pop up over a vacation or summer camp, etc. There’s a greater sense of anonymity and less concern about “what will this person think of me?” We are unlikely to be seeing this person on a frequent basis, so we won’t be reminded of our vulnerability and personal revelations. Our “confessions” are limited to a containable space and shared with people we actually never have to engage with again, if we choose not to.

"Pandemic Friends" May Disappear When Pandemic Fears Subside

While some online friendships deepen over time and endure for decades, there has to be more to the relationship than just one shared preference or experience. Friendships that flourish require an investment of time, energy, and support.

The most important aspect of friendship longevity has to do with the ability of the relationship to handle the dynamic nature of individuals. People are not static—we are changing and developing every day. If a friendship is too brittle or based on a single shared commonality, it is unlikely to have the depth and resilience to thrive as each person moves through life. While we all have friends from different stages of our lives, and seeing them may take us back in our minds to that time when their presence in our lives was so valued, if we don’t have enough connections beyond that one shared thing, the relationship won’t endure.

Will Our New Online Friends Make the “F2F World” Friendship Cut?

When we’re only engaging in online connections, we’re focused on the similarities between us and others. However, when we’re thinking of moving to a face-to-face relationship, we may become keenly aware of the differences between us and our online friends.

Not only does the depth of the connection matter, so does our willingness to let the part of ourselves that we may have shared in pseudo-anonymity and confidentially online “show up” in our real lives. If the bond is built on a love of a travel destination, we may plan a destination meet-up. This can become an annual pilgrimage or the experience may lead us to realize that one face-to-face meet-up may be enough for a lifetime if that perfectly acceptable online friend turns out to be totally unacceptable as a friend in real life—for whatever reason that might be.

Another aspect of moving online friendships into our real world is that when we share online, we are doing so in the comfort and privacy of our own homes. We are controlling the audience, the setting, and our communications. When we build friendships in face-to-face settings, we are losing any sense of anonymity and our being “exposed” in a way that some online connections cannot survive, for whatever reason.

In essence, all friendships are going to be voluntary relationships and as much as we might like to be able to “force friend” a person, it’s not something we can force to happen. Just as some friendships are really reflections of who we were at a certain point in our lives, but nothing more, some online friendships will only be able to exist when they are restricted to the virtual world where we can share and be whatever we want with a sense of safety from more public exposure.

Suzanne Degges-White, Ph.D. , is a licensed counselor and professor at Northern Illinois University.

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Teenagers’ Friendships Online Provide Emotional Support, Study Finds

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From doing homework to reading the news to hanging out with friends, teenagers’ lives increasingly take place online.

Friendships that form face-to-face carry over onto Snapchat, Instagram, and other digital platforms. And for the most part, talking with friends online provides the same kind of support and validation for teenagers as seeing friends offline, according to a new review study of teenagers’ virtual social interactions.

“People have these concerns that somehow, technology and social media are supplanting relationships or minimizing the emotional intimacy,” said Stephanie Reich, co-author of the study and an associate professor of education at the University of California, Irvine, in an interview. But that’s not the case, she said.

“The key pieces of friendships, whether you see them in a schoolyard or at the mall, are happening on social media as well.”

Lead researcher Joanna Yau and Reich looked at six characteristics that are consistently used to define friendship in research: self-disclosure, validation, companionship, instrumental support, conflict, and conflict resolution.

They identified 36 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, reports, and presentations about teens’ and young adults’ interactions on social media platforms that gave examples of these six characteristics. For each of the characteristics, the researchers analyzed the similarities and differences between face-to-face and online interaction.

The studies they examined demonstrated that friendships fulfill the same emotional needs online that they do in person. For example, teenagers used Snapchat and instant message platforms to both share mundane daily moments and reach out during times of stress. These exchanges build intimacy and trust, just like self-disclosure between friends that happens face-to-face.

Online communication can change the shape of some interactions, said Reich. “A lot of social media platforms don’t give you a lot of text or space in which you could really articulate what your point is,” she said, often leaving a lot of room for misinterpretation. And conflict on more public platforms—like Facebook—often plays out in front of an audience, which can quickly escalate the stakes.

But even as social media can spark conflict, it can also help diffuse it, she said. In some of Reich’s previous research, included in the review paper synthesis, she found that teenagers feel social media provides an avenue for conflict resolution.

“It’s emotionally intense to face somebody in person and apologize and hash through stuff,” she said. “But if you could text it back and forth, or if you could comment it back and forth, then it’s a little bit safer-feeling.”

This study doesn’t negate other research that links heavy social media use with depression, said Reich. Instead, she said, social media is the site of a variety of interactions and emotional experiences—some that are positive, like friendships, but also some that are negative, like cyberbullying and jealousy.

Because technology creates a social space, researchers need to change the way they think about screen time—time spent interacting with devices, she said.

This shift has already started to take place, she said. Last year, the American Academy of Pediatrics lifted its recommendation banning any screen time for children younger than 18 months , allowing video chatting.

“Technology now being mobile, it weaves within your day. It’s not like television, where you sit down and watch TV and you’re kind of removed from other things,” said Reich. “You’re in and out of it, all day long, so to think about screen time as some kind of isolated, quantifiable amount is problematic, or challenging at the least.”

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A version of this news article first appeared in the Digital Education blog.

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Comparing the Happiness Effects of Real and On-Line Friends

John f. helliwell.

1 Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and Vancouver School of Economics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Haifang Huang

2 Department of Economics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Conceived and designed the experiments: JFH HH. Analyzed the data: JFH HH. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: JFH HH. Wrote the paper: JFH HH.

A recent large Canadian survey permits us to compare face-to-face (‘real-life’) and on-line social networks as sources of subjective well-being. The sample of 5,000 is drawn randomly from an on-line pool of respondents, a group well placed to have and value on-line friendships. We find three key results. First, the number of real-life friends is positively correlated with subjective well-being (SWB) even after controlling for income, demographic variables and personality differences. Doubling the number of friends in real life has an equivalent effect on well-being as a 50% increase in income. Second, the size of online networks is largely uncorrelated with subjective well-being. Third, we find that real-life friends are much more important for people who are single, divorced, separated or widowed than they are for people who are married or living with a partner. Findings from large international surveys (the European Social Surveys 2002–2008) are used to confirm the importance of real-life social networks to SWB; they also indicate a significantly smaller value of social networks to married or partnered couples.

Introduction

There are constant changes in the types of activities that people engage in, and in the technologies they use to establish and enjoy their social connections. For example, Robert Putnam’s analysis of movements in social capital in the United States over the 20th century showed that memberships in most US organizations, the frequency of dinner parties, league bowling, and many other types of social connection grew for the first 70 years of the 20th century and declined thereafter [1] . Some commentators and researchers argued that there were new types of social connection, possibly more effective in nature, that were growing and possibly offsetting the effects of declines elsewhere. One of the key examples offered was the substitution of on-line for face-to-face (we use this term interchangeably with ‘real-life’) friendships. The internet could thereby be seen as providing ways of enhancing or replacing face-to-face friends through the availability of on-line social networks.

How can the effects of these differing trends be compared? To judge the importance and value of differing forms of friendship requires a common basis for valuation. The broadening availability of data for subjective well-being offers one possible solution to this valuation problem. If it were possible to measure each individual’s network of on-line and real-life friends, then their respective contributions to subjective well-being could provide a way of comparing their values, and hence to judge whether the quality of social networks as a whole was growing or shrinking. Only very recently has there been a survey that provided comparable measures of networks of face-to-face and on-line friends, set in the context of a well-being survey of sufficient size and scope to permit comparable assessments of the two types of friends.

Literature Review

Friends and family are a long-established support for subjective well-being. Friends matter to happiness both for being potential sources of social support and for the pleasures from time spent together, whether at work, at play, or in activities for the benefit of others. Data from the Gallup World Poll suggest that having someone to call on in times of trouble is associated with a life evaluation that is higher, on a 0 to 10 scale, by almost half a point (page 298 in [2] ). This is more than the equivalent of increasing household incomes by 150%. There is also a dose-response relationship, so that having more friends is better than having fewer. Evidence from the Canadian General Social Survey shows that, compared to respondents having no close friends, to have 3 to 5 close friends is associated with life satisfaction 0.24 points higher on a 10-point scale, an amount that rises to.32 for those with 6 to 10 close friends, and to 0.43 points for those with more than 20 close friends [3] . Also notable is that happiness depends not just on the number of close friends, but also the frequency with which they are seen [3] , [4] . The same survey also asks about the number of close relatives, and the frequency with which they are seen. An interesting difference appears between friends and family. The number of close family matters more than the number of close friends, about twice as much up to 15 in number, with no gain thereafter, while frequency of seeing family contributes only half as much as the frequency of seeing close friends [3] . A similar result is found in US and other Canadian data analyzed by [5] , where it is shown that the frequency of seeing friends adds twice as much to subjective well-being as does the frequency of seeing family. The US and Canadian surveys in [5] also reveal a strong relation between subjective well-being and the frequency of seeing friends, with those seeing friends most frequently having subjective well-being higher by 0.5 points on a ten-point scale.

All of these results are based on fully specified models with many other control variables, although there is no doubt likely to be some remaining element of mutual causality between subjective well-being and the frequency of seeing friends. For example, those who are at the bottom end of the subjective well-being scale, and especially those who are clinically depressed, often reduce the extent to which they reach out to friends. Indeed social withdrawal is a key element in the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) [6] , as supported in subsequent factor-analytic work by [7] . Thus some of the strong positive linkages between friends and happiness may reflect causal influences running in both directions. This is likely to apply for both real-life and on-line friends, and hence should not affect our comparisons in this paper between these two types of friends.

There are few studies of the linkages between on-line friendships and subjective well-being. One study [8] found a positive relation between subjective well-being and number of Facebook friends among a sample of 391 college-age subjects. Another study of college-age respondents in the United States, while not directly investigating the links between Facebook usage and subjective well-being, did find evidence that Facebook usage was correlated with proxy measures of social capital, but only for those with relatively low levels of satisfaction with campus life [9] . An earlier study of social capital and internet usage in a sample of US adolescents [10] found no significant relation between subjective well-being and time spent on-line. Those who spent more time messaging with close real-life friends were happier. Conversely, the relation between on-line time and subjective well-being was negative for those in contact with strangers or purely on-line friends. A recent study of Egyptian students found no significant relation between life satisfaction and intensity of Facebook usage [11] .

Although there are many studies showing the effects of marital status on subjective well-being, we have not found previous attempts to see if the happiness effects of either real-life or on-line friends differ by marital status. Using two different surveys, we look for, and find, a large interaction effect in the happiness effects of marital status and real-life friends, but no significant differences for the effects of on-line friends.

We think that our results are the first to compare the happiness effects of real-life and on-line friends. Hence there are no directly comparable prior studies. Based on a meta-analysis [12] of fifty years of studies showing significantly more effective cooperation in conflict resolutions using face-to-face rather than written communications, we might conjecture that a similar difference might exist to differentiate the happiness effects of real-life and on-line friends.

Data and Summary Statistics

The primary dataset for the paper is the 2011 Happiness Monitor survey sponsored by Coca-Cola and conducted in Canada between January 20 and 31, 2011 by Leger Marketing, using their online panel LegerWeb. The sample includes 5,025 Canadian residents, aged 16 and over, drawn from all ten Canadian provinces. The survey focuses on subjective well-being, and has questions that cover self-evaluation of life and other questions that can be used to construct alternative measures of well-being. It also has questions on people’s opinions about how various elements in life contribute to happiness. A section called Canadiana has occasionally light-hearted questions such as what is the happiest job in Canada, with a list that includes Zamboni driver and lumberjack.

From our perspective, the most interesting questions (other than the ones on well-being) are those on the size of social networks, separately for real-life friends and on-line friends. This presents an opportunity for us to examine potential differences between these two types of networks, specifically in their contributions to subjective well-being.

We use regression analysis to relate measures of subjective well-being to the sizes of social networks, as well as income and demographic controls. We will also use control variables to pick up differences in personalities; such variables include self-reported stress, time spent exercising and contributions to charitable causes.

The survey’s primary measure of subjective well-being is an 11-point (from 0 to 10) life ladder , based on the question “Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from zero at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?” This question, also known as Cantril’s Self-Anchoring Ladder, is frequently used in well-being studies, including the recent World Happiness Report [13] and many studies cited therein. We plot the distribution of sample responses in the first panel of Figure 1 . The mode is “7” with a quarter of the respondents. The next greatest concentration is “8” with about 20% of the responses. The sample mean is 6.8, significantly lower than for the Canadian ladder responses in the Gallup World Poll, as shown in figure 2 .3 of the World Happiness Report.

It is possible to construct two other measures of well-being from the survey. One is life satisfaction, based on the four-point responses to the question “To what extent do you agree with each of the following statements” that include a statement “I am satisfied with my life”. The four points are “strongly agree”, “somewhat agree”, “somewhat disagree” and “strongly disagree”. The second panel of Figure 1 shows the distribution. The mode, covering more than 50% of the responses, is “somewhat agree”. Another potential measure is the response to the question “How happy are you at the beginning of 2011? Very happy, somewhat happy, somewhat unhappy, very unhappy.” The distribution of happiness is similar to that of life satisfaction: the third step “somewhat happy” has more than 50% of the sample. We will use these two measures of well-being for robustness tests.

There is also a question on the level of stress, specifically the response to the question “How would you rate your average daily stress levels? Very low, Low, Medium, High, Very high.” Its distribution is shown in the last panel of Figure 1 . The response of “Medium” has the greatest share of responses at 40%.

We now move on to the two questions on social networks. The first question concerns real-life friends. The exact wording is “How big is your real-life social network of friends?” The permitted responses, unless the respondents refuse to answer, include “Less than 10 friends”, “Between 10 and 20 friends”, “Between 20 and 30 friends”, “Between 30 and 50 friends”, and “More than 50 friends”. The distribution of the network size is shown in the upper panel of Figure 2 . A large majority of the sample, almost 80%, is in the first two categories (i.e., with fewer than 20 friends).

The immediately next question in the survey concerns online friends: “How big is your online social network?” The responses include “I don't have an online social network”, “Less than 100”, “Between 100–300”, “Between 300–500”, “Between 500–700” and -Greater than 700”. The distribution is shown on the lower panel of Figure 2 . A large majority of the sample either has no online friends (about 25%) or have fewer than 100 of them (about 50%).

The two network questions have different numbers of steps, and both have some steps with sparse responses (see Figure 2 ). We correct for these problems by combining the top two categories of real-life network into one single category with 11% of the sample, and the top three categories of online network into one category with 9% of the sample. This way, we turn the two network sizes into a comparable scale of four steps. In the case of real-life network, the four categories are “less than 10”, “10–20”, “20–30” and “30 or more”, with 44%, 34% 11% and 11% of the sample, respectively. The size of online network falls into “0”, “1–100”, “100–300”, “300 or more”, with 23%, 50.8%, 17.6% and 8.6% of the sample, respectively.

Table 1 presents summary statistics of other variables. The average age is 45. Forty-five percent (45%) of the sample are married; 15% in common-law relation, 5% dating, 23% single; the remaining 12% are divorced, separated, widowed or are unknown. The income information is based on categorical responses of income intervals. We estimate the midpoint of each interval under the assumption that income follows a log-normal distribution. We then assign respondents in each interval the corresponding midpoint estimate. The categories for the income variables are “$20,000 and below”, “$20,001 to $35,000”, “$35,001 to $50,000”, “$50,001 to $75,000”, “$75,001 and $110,000” and “more than $110,000”. The estimated midpoints are $13,605, $27,073, $41,895, $60,345, $87,895 and $136,849 respectively. About 15% of the sample did not provide income information. We use a dummy variable to indicate such a status in the regression analysis. Among those that have valid income information, the sample mean is $51 thousand. The average time spent on moderate to high intensity exercising is 1.78 hours per week. Close to 60% of survey respondents indicated that they currently volunteer or give time or money to charitable causes.

A second dataset that we use is the European Social Survey (ESS), a biennial cross-sectional survey of residents aged 15 and over within private households that is “designed to chart and explain the interaction between Europe's changing institutions and the attitudes, beliefs and behaviour patterns of its diverse populations” (The European Social Survey project). We use the cumulative file for rounds 1–4 (2002, 2004, 2006, 2008) that has 34 participating countries. The ESS does not have information relating to online social networks. Instead, it has information on survey respondents’ frequency of socially meeting with friends, relatives or colleagues. Figure 3 plots the distribution of the frequency, in the categories of “Never”, “Less than once a month”, “Once a month”, “Several times a month”, “Once a week”, “Several times a week” and “Every day”.

The ESS has two alternative measures of SWB, happiness and life satisfaction. The two underlying questions are “Taking all things together, how happy would you say you are?” and “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole nowadays?”. Both SWB measures are on a 11-point ascending scale from 0 to 10, with 0 indicating extremely unhappy/dissatisfied and 10 indicating extremely happy/satisfied. Figure 4 plots the distributions. Table 2 presents summary statistics of other variables.

By covering many different countries, adopting a different way of measuring interactions with friends, and by having additional measures of subjective well-being, the ESS increases the power and generality of our findings about the happiness effects of real-life friends.

Regression Analysis

Our regression analysis estimates the following equation

The measure of life ladder is ordinal; but as commonly found in the literature, little is lost if we treat it as cardinal. For example, [14] reported that the choice between probit regressions, which treats dependent variables as ordinal, and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), which treats dependent variables as cardinal, makes virtually no difference to the estimated relationships between happiness and important explanatory variables. In this paper, we will present results from the method of OLS; Ordered Probit estimations yield qualitatively similar findings. In terms of quantitative evaluations, our discussions will be based largely on the concept of compensating differentials: we will compare the estimated effects of social networks to the estimated effects of income. The ratios of coefficients are almost invariant to the choice of regression methods, as switching between OLS and Ordered Probit affects estimated coefficients almost proportionally (see [15] for an example).

The variables of interest on the right-hand side are the sizes of social networks in real life and on-line. In both cases, the size information is based on categorical choices from a set of intervals (the distributions are shown in Figure 2 ). We enter the size information into the regressions in two different ways. The first approach uses a set of dummy variables to indicate the intervals. This avoids making assumptions regarding the functional form of the relationships between network sizes and subjective well-being. The second approach imposes an assumption that the relationship is log-linear. To implement the log-linear approach, we turn the intervals into continuous values by assigning the midpoint of an interval to observations in that interval. In the case of real-life friends, the category “Less than 10 friends” is assigned a value of 5, the category “Between 10 and 20 friends” receives a value of 15, and so on. The top category “More than 50 friends” is assigned a value of 60. Similarly, we assign continuous values to the size of online network by assigning zero to the category “I don’t have an online social network”, the value of 50 to “Less than 100”, the value of 200 to “Between 100–300”, and so on. The top category “Greater than 700” receives a value of 800.

Table 3 shows the regression output. In all columns, the dependent variable is the 0–10 point life ladder. In the first column, we enter the network sizes as a set of categorical variables. In the second column, the network sizes are in (logged) continuous values. The first two columns show the happiness effects of real-life and on-line friends without the inclusion of other variables. In columns (3) and (4) we add a full set of control variables to be described below, and in columns (5) and (6) we further test the robustness of our findings by adding a measure of psychological stress.

Columns (1) and (2) provide the simplest and starkest evidence that real-life and on-line friends have very different associations with subjective well-being. Whether measured as categories or as continuous variables, real-life friends are positively associated with happiness, while on-line networks have a negative relationship. The strong positive effects of real-life networks are consistent with much other research. The strong negative effects of on-line friends are more surprising. The difference between the two effects is striking. Because the size and nature of friendships is likely to be correlated with age, gender, marital status, income and other variables, we shall do our main analysis of results using columns (3) and (4), which confirm our first results showing sharply differing effects of real-life and on-line friends, but largely eliminate the estimated negative effects of on-line networks.

The estimated effects of the newly added control variables are largely consistent with the literature. As commonly found, there is a positive and statistically significant income effect. The estimates of the effect are largely invariant across specifications, and suggest that doubling income ( i.e. , an increase of logged income by 0.7 unit) increases the life ladder by about 0.3. Later we will use this estimate as a benchmark to evaluate the quantitative importance of social networks. In term of genders, male respondents tend to report a lower evaluation of life. There is a U-shape relationship between age and life ladder: the life ladder falls as age rises but makes a U-turn in the 40 s. In terms of marital status, the happiest respondents are those who are in a relationship (married, common-law, or dating). The least happy group, which we use as the reference group, includes those who are divorced, widowed or separated. The group of non-dating singles lies in between. The difference between singles and the in-relationship groups is substantial, equivalent to the impact of increasing logged income by an entire unit. There is a strong negative effect associated with being unemployed, a positive effect associated with exercising and volunteering time or money for charitable causes. The estimated coefficients on the educational variables turn out largely insignificant, likely because the control variables already include measure of household income and social-context variables that are correlated with education.

The sizes of social networks enter columns (3) and (5) in Table 3 as categorical variables of intervals. The reference groups that are left out are those that have the smallest networks, specifically “less than 10” in the case of real-life friends and zero in the case of online friends. The estimated effects of real-life friends are all statistically significant and quantitatively substantial. Compared to the group that has fewer than 10 friends, the estimates in column (3) suggests that having 10–20 friends increases the life ladder by 0.29 points, equivalent to the improvement associated with a 0.7 unit of logged income (or 100% increase of income). Compared to the same reference group, having 20–30 friends increases the ladder by 0.32 points, while having more than 30 friends increases the evaluation by 0.36. The estimates thus suggest a substantial non-linearity in the relationship between network sizes and well-being. The most substantial increase in well-being occurs when moving from the group of “less than 10” to the group of “10 to 20”. The marginal contribution beyond that is quite small. Columns (4) and (6), which treat network sizes as continuous values, also show positive and significant coefficients. The variable of network size is expressed in logarithms. The coefficient estimate is 0.19, equivalent to the well-being gain from a 0.44 rise increase in logged income. Doubling the number of real-life friends is equivalent to increasing income by more than one half.

The findings for on-line networks are strikingly different from those for real-life friends. Compared to the reference group that has no on-line network at all, having a greater number of on-line friends is not associated with a higher level of life ladder. If anything, the correlation is negative, generally not significant at the 95% confidence level. Column (4) uses logged continuous values to express the size of networks. In such a specification, the estimated effect from the online network is negative and significant, although it is quantitatively small (doubling the number of online friends has the equivalent effect of reducing income by 10%).

The regressions described above estimate the effect of the online social network while controlling for the size of real-life network. Given the positive correlations between online networks and real-life networks (the correlation coefficient is 0.25), we expect the coefficients for online networks size to become more positive if we remove the variables for real-life networks from the regressions. We performed this test using the equation of column (3), and it did indeed make the coefficients on online network size less negative, but they still maintain a negative sign throughout (though none of them has statistical significance at the 95% level).

The final two columns of the table add to the right-hand side of the regressions an extra variable: the self-reported level of daily stress. The inclusion of the stress variable increases the r-squared substantially (from 17% to 24%), but has little impact on the estimated effects of network sizes; nor does it change the contrast between the two types of network. These findings reinforce our earlier point that omitted variables, including those correlated with personality, will not put our conclusions at risk as long as their inclusion does not alter the key coefficients, and especially the relative impact of on-line and real-life friends. The equations adding stress thus provide additional evidence of the robustness of our results.

The next table, or Table 4 , uses the four-step life satisfaction and happiness answers as alternative dependent variables. For better comparability with the 0–10 point life ladder, we rescale the two variables so that they, too, have zero for the lowest level of satisfaction/happiness and 10 for the highest level. The estimates are similar to those from the estimations based on the life ladder. Real-life networks are important to satisfaction and happiness, while online networks are largely irrelevant. The biggest difference is that the estimated effect of real-life friendship is even greater for happiness and life satisfaction than for the life ladder. In the case of life ladder in Table 3 , doubling the number of real-life friends has the same effect as increasing income by more than one-half (exp.44 = 1.55). For life satisfaction, doubling the number of friends is equivalent to a doubling of income (exp.69 = 1.99), while for happiness it has the same effect as a trebling of income (exp 1.12 = 3.06).

Next, we split the sample into two subgroups: one includes respondents who are married or in a common-law relationship; the other includes the rest of the sample. This is to compare the importance of friendship and social networks in the two segments of the population. Our earlier results have already shown that both marriage and real-life friends contribute importantly to subjective well-being, and by somewhat comparable amounts. Our results also show that those who are single but dating are almost as happy as those who are living together, once again suggesting the importance of the social aspects of co-habitation.

Table 5 presents the split-sample estimates. Its first two columns use the life ladder as the dependent variable, while the other four apply to life satisfaction and happiness, respectively. For each of the alternative dependent variables, one column shows estimates from the married/partnered sample; the other shows estimates from the rest of the sample. The findings regarding social networks are similar across the measures of SWB. The sizes of on-line networks are largely statistically insignificant for both subgroups. The real-life networks, in contrast, have positive and generally significant effects on SWB; but there is a stark contrast between the married/partnered respondents and the rest of the sample. Real-life networks have greater effects for people who are not married/partnered. The estimated differences are substantial. In the case of life ladder, the estimated contribution of having more than more than 30 friends is 0.72 in the un-married/partnered sample; the standard error is 0.18. In contrast, the estimated contribution is only 0.14 for people who are married or in a common-law partnership; the standard error is 0.14. There is thus no overlap in the 95% confidence intervals of the two estimates. Regressions using the alternative measures of SWB show a similar pattern of difference, with real-life networks being significantly more valuable for people who are not married or in a common-law partnership. Finally, we note that when we separate the married group and the common-law group instead of treating them as a single sample, we find by and large similar relationships between real-life friends and happiness. Table 6 reports the estimates. In all cases, the point estimates of the real-life friends’ effects in the married sample or in the common-law sample are smaller than those in the rest of the population (in Table 5 ). This explains why we combine the married and the common-law population together as a single group, and compare it to the rest of the population.

We also split the sample by gender (male and female) and by age group (16–34, 35–49, 50–64 and 65 and up). Table 7 presents the estimates. The estimated effects of on-line networks are mostly insignificant, or have signs indicating negative contributions to SWB. Real-life friends, on the other hand, have positive and mostly significant estimates. The biggest exception concerns the age group 35 to 49, for which none of the network variables (online or real) have any positive and significant effects. In fact, the highest size of on-line network is negatively associated with life ladder, with strong statistical significance.

Finally, we split the sample along the interactive gender×age groups: young (16–34) males and females, middle-aged (34–50) males and females, elder (50 and up) males and females. Table 8 presents the estimates. Many of the estimated effects of the real-life network become insignificant, likely due to the drop in sample size. But they retain their positive sign with very few exceptions. It is worth noting that, among middle-aged females, having the largest size of online network (300 online friends or more) has a large, negative and significant association with SWB. The estimated effect is so large that it exceeds that of being unemployed by a substantial margin. One possible explanation for this association is reverse causality, with unhappy people extending greater efforts to expand their on-line networks or resorting to more intensive online activity that leads to greater network sizes.

Findings from the ESS

The previous section makes three empirical observations: 1) the size of real-life social networks contributes positively to SWB; 2) the size of on-line social networks does not contribute to SWB; 3) the real-life social network is more valuable for respondents who are not married or in a common-law relationship. We can test the robustness of the first and the third observations using the European Social Survey (ESS), a large international survey whose first four rounds (2002–2008) include more than 180,000 individual respondents in 34 countries. The ESS does not, unfortunately, have information about on-line social networks.

We will use the ESS data to estimate equations similar to equ(1), but without the variable for on-line networks. There are two alternative measures of SWB from the survey, happiness and life satisfaction, both on the same 11-point scale from 0 to 10 as is used for the Cantril ladder in the Canadian survey. The variable of interest on the right-hand side is the response to the question “how often do you meet socially with friends, relatives or work colleagues?” This measure of social interactions is originally recorded in seven categories: “Never”, “Less than once a month”, “Once a month”, “Several times a month”, “Once a week”, “Several times a week” and “Every day”. To construct categorical indicators with sufficient sample sizes, we collapse the survey responses into five categories: “less than once a month including never” (with a combined mass of 11%), “once a month” (9%), “several times a month including once a week” (36%), “several times a week” (27%) and “every day” (17%). We then include the categorical indicators on the right-hand side of our estimations to explain SWB.

Our regressions also include a conventional set of control variables in SWB analysis: age, age squared, educational attainment, marital status, labour force status and income. We also control for country fixed effects and wave fixed effects (The wave 1 ESS was conducted in 2002, wave 2 in 2004, wave 3 in 2006 and wave 4 in 2008). The country fixed effects remove cross-country differences in per capita income as well as the potentially different interpretations regarding the scale of satisfaction and happiness. We also use the general level of trust (the response to the question whether “most people can be trusted, or that you can't be too careful in dealing with people”), the frequency of attending religious services outside special occasions, and self-reported health status to control for the differences in social and religious attitudes, subjective health, as well as possible personality differences. We use Ordinary Least Squares, clustering errors at the country level.

Tables 9 and ​ and10 10 present the results. The findings for the control variables are similar to those reported in the previous section. Males tend to report lower happiness and satisfaction. There is a U-shape relation between age and SWB; those in the 40 s report the lowest happiness and life satisfaction. Compared to the divorced, separated or the widowed, being married or in a civil partnership is associated with higher SWB. The same is true for being never married, but to a lesser extent. Higher income is associated with higher SWB. We find positive income-SWB relation throughout the income distribution. The relation flattens out at middle and higher income, but the marginal contribution of income to well-being never falls to zero or becomes negative. In terms of labour force status, there is no significant difference between being employed and not participating. Being unemployed, however, is a significant negative factor with a large estimated effect. The SWB difference between unemployment and non-participation is similar to the difference arising from moving an individual from the lowest income decile to the 7th decile in the case of happiness, or to the 8th decile in the case of life satisfaction. General trust, the frequency of attending religious services and self-reported health status are all positive contributing factors to happiness and to life satisfaction.

Our variable of special interest on the right-hand side is the frequency of socially meeting with friends, relatives and colleagues. The estimated coefficients on this variable are all positive. A higher frequency is associated with greater happiness and satisfaction. For happiness, the greatest improvement occurs when moving away from the bottom (less than once a month) to the category of “once a month”; the happiness increment is 0.4 point. There is a further gain of 0.25 when moving to “several times a month”, then a further 0.16 gain to “several time a week”, then a further 0.17 gain to “every day”. For life satisfaction, the marginal improvements associated with the same step-by-step moves are 0.31, 0.26, 0.17 and 0.09, respectively in the same order. These contributions, especially those arising from a move from the bottom (less than once a month) to the next level (once a month), are very substantial, more than the SWB gain due to a jump from the 5th income decile to the top decile in the case of happiness, and equivalent to a jump from the 5th decile to the 8th decile in the case of life satisfaction. But it is important to realize that there is only about 10% of the population whose frequency of social interactions is at the bottom with less than once a month; so we are talking about moving away from a small minority that has a very low frequency of social interactions. If we focus on the move from “several times a month” to “several times a week”, the marginal contribution is more moderate. The income equivalent is a move from the 5th decile to the 8th in the case of happiness, and from the 5th to the 7th in the case of life satisfaction.

We now examine the difference between married couples/civil partners and those who are not in such relations. The findings from the Canadian survey indicate that the importance of real-life networks to SWB is greater for those who are not in a marriage or a common-law partnership. The ESS yields qualitatively similar observations. The second and the third columns of Tables 9 present estimates from the spilt-sample estimation, with happiness as the dependent variable. Table 10 has the same split-sample estimations with life satisfaction as the dependent variable. For both SWB measures, the estimated effects of social interactions are lower for married/partnered couples than for the rest of the population. In most cases, the differences between point estimates are greater than two standard errors of individual estimates.

The findings from the ESS thus confirm that real-life social networks (captured as the frequency of social interactions in the ESS) are positive and substantial contributing factors to SWB, with an importance that is greater for people who are not married or in a civil partnership.

We have used data from a large new Canadian survey to estimate the subjective well-being benefits of comparably measured networks of real-life and on-line friends. We have three main results. First, we confirm many earlier studies showing the importance of real-life friends to subjective well-being. Second, we find that comparably measured networks of on-line friends have zero or negative correlations with subjective well-being, whether or not allowance is made for the influence of other factors. Third, we find significant interactions between marriage and friends as sources of happiness. The estimated well-being impact of the number of friends is much smaller for those who are married or living together, suggesting that friends and spouses provide some similar happiness benefits. We also find that single people who are dating have subjective well-being significantly higher than those who are not. The effect is almost as high as for living together, which in turn is nearly as high as being married. These results also suggest that the company and friendship of marriage matter as much as the legal institution. Our Canadian results on the well-being value of networks of real-life friends are confirmed also for large samples of data from the European Social Survey. We also confirm from the ESS the greater value of friends for those who are not married.

Our results on the relative values of real-life and on-line friends are likely to be specific to generations, countries, and demographic groups, and to change as social and technological changes alter the possibilities for these two types of social connection to be either mutually supportive or inconsistent in their consequences for well-being. The overall importance of friendship to the maintenance of subjective well-being would seem to support more widespread collection of comparable data on the size and quality of friendships of different types, whether real-life or on-line, or on or off the job.

The limitations of our current results relate in part to the fact that we have only one survey comparably measuring the size of networks of real-life and on-line friends, so that our results might depend to some extent on sample or population specifics. As in all correlation analysis, there are risks that the influences we treat as running from friends to happiness may also be running in the reverse direction, or be determined by some third factors not controlled for. Our hope is that these difficulties are sufficiently shared by the data for the two types of friends that our comparative results might be expected to hold in more experimental contexts. We hope at least to have provided a useful first look.

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research for research support, and to Leger Marketing and Coca-Cola Canada for data from their 2011 Happiness Monitor. The Cumulative Data Rounds 1–4 of the European Social Surveys was available at www.europeansocialsurvey.org/ . The Happiness Monitor survey data needed for replicating the results reported in this paper will be made available to other researchers by the authors upon request.

Funding Statement

This research is supported by the Social Interactions, Identity and Well-Being program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. The corresponding author is co-director of that program. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Teens’ online friendships just as meaningful as face-to-face ones, UCI study finds

Digital communication can even provide more benefits but also carries more risks

Irvine, Calif., Sept. 26, 2017 — Many parents worry about how much time teenagers spend texting, sharing selfies and engaging in other online activities with their friends. However, according to a recent research synthesis from the University of California, Irvine, many of these digital behaviors serve the same purpose and encompass the same core qualities as face-to-face relationships.

“Increased peer interaction in cyberspace has led to growing concern that today’s adolescent friendships are now less intimate and an inadequate substitute for those back in the day that took place in person,” said Stephanie Reich, UCI associate professor of education and co-author of the study. “Many contacts between adolescents are mediated through technology and can provide additional opportunities for friends to spend time together, share thoughts and display affection than in offline spaces alone.”

Reich, along with Ph.D. student and lead author Joanna Yau, identified six core characteristics of offline friendships – self-disclosure, validation, companionship, instrumental support, conflict and conflict resolution – and their digital parallels. For each quality, they noted ways in which online interfaces corresponded with or differed from in-person communication. The results are detailed in Adolescent Research Review.

Reich and Yau found that digital exchanges offer more benefits in some areas and carry increased risks in others. On the plus side, online contact enhances companionship between friends via conversations that can continue throughout the day and night without disrupting others, and it also allows more time to control emotions and calm down before crafting and sending a response to something upsetting. Conversely, friendships can be damaged by gossip and rumors, which spread much faster and farther through cyberspace.

“Digital communication may increase the ramifications of conduct due to the permanence of information and the speed by which it travels, but at the core, friendships seem to have the same key characteristics,” Reich said. “The majority of adolescents interact electronically most often with individuals they consider friends offline. So rather than reducing intimacy in these relationships, technology-mediated communication may provide additional benefits to teens as connections occur both face-to-face and online.”

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is the youngest member of the prestigious Association of American Universities. The campus has produced three Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 30,000 students and offers 192 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $5 billion annually to the local economy. For more on UCI, visit www.uci.edu .

Media access: Radio programs/stations may, for a fee, use an on-campus ISDN line to interview UCI faculty and experts, subject to availability and university approval. For more UCI news, visit wp.communications.uci.edu . Additional resources for journalists may be found at communications.uci.edu/for-journalists .

Online friendships are not a joke

By Marc Corrales

13 June 2023

In 2013, the first major research investigation was launched into online friendships. It was suggested that online friendships don’t have as much positive impact as real-life, face-to-face relationships. If anything, some of the data might have even implied that more online friends pointed to being less well-off in wealth or mental health. It might have been the first study of its kind, but it didn’t paint a pretty picture for those hoping to make lifelong bonds through the internet. Especially so for those who are either disabled, from an isolated community, or otherwise shy.

I don’t exactly have a lot of friends in real life. To clarify, I mean in a face-to-face sort of way. As someone with high-functioning autism, I always find myself to be the person who prefers to keep to himself under most circumstances. If there’s one interest I’m into that others might not have, then it’s a foregone conclusion that I will end up alone, minding my own business.

During my first year of university, I initially tried to join a group of students who have autism like me. Once again, I struggled to relate to much of the group until around November, when I simply focused on using the library for leisure and research. The membership fee for most student societies was a tad bit much for what they offered, so people like me, who are mostly frugal spenders, tend to turn away from such.

That’s my social life, as depressing as it sounds. You feel left out no matter how many people know you; it’s like being forced to join a party that you never wanted to go to, only for it to last for years.

Enter Discord. I made an account in 2019 just to join one gaming community, although I forgot about it for nearly nine months. When the COVID pandemic broke out in England, I was forced to remain at home due to a lockdown measure. At that time, I was getting into a cartoon show that was managing to build up a fandom of teenagers and young adults. In February, I joined the community to just lurk and look at some fan-made works. It was around June when I started to talk there occasionally. In September, I decided to get more active, sharing whatever content I liked online for others to see and joining in with the inside jokes. That marks when, with a bit of geeking about indie music, I started a small conversation with another user. Let’s call them ‘Assassin’.

Here’s a caveat about my initial impression of online friendships back then. I genuinely thought they were a bit of rubbish and, at times, a slightly naive kind of relationship. I once had a handful of short-lived experiences with online friends from video games. Some of these relations can sometimes be forgetful or even prejudiced-tinged. Like phone numbers, they become graveyards of vague, anonymous names once known. As a result, you have a neurodivergent person who’s awfully picky about who to be close with.

The first conversation I had with Assassin, someone who was interested in one other thing about me outside of just gaming, was a breath of fresh air. We were both interested in music that fits just outside of the mainstream. This was when things started to spiral for a bit. Assassin was friends with another user with even closer music tastes to mine, who was happy to talk about indie music with me. Then it escalated to me getting into an online social group, growing closer and more comfortable with each passing day. Now, I feel a lot more at ease with myself and with the friend group I have.

Such relationships have helped me feel better when sharing information with others worldwide. There are numerous benefits to having online friends. In  OECD , sociology professor Gustavo S. Mesch highlights its potential in “ improving access to information, knowledge and skills that are unavailable locally, and provide opportunities for diversification of social relationships ”. An article from  ABC  mentioned that online media's largely anonymous side enables people to express their most vulnerable side.

We can see that as time passes by, online friends are starting to become more common, especially among the younger generations like the Millennials and Zoomers. A  YouGov survey  highlights how the COVID pandemic not only led to many finding their friendships ending but also put more emphasis on contacting friends through either online, video, or phone calls. In a book titled  How the World Changed Social Media , numerous cited research points to how most college-educated people use online means to remain in contact with their friends after graduating. All this is on top of most people using it to make up for shallow offline relationships and curate their identity as authentic if they’re either from a country like Trinidad, or struggle to express themselves in a face-to-face scenario like me.

Even as it becomes normalised among the younger generations, the idea of having online friends is still criticised. Many argue that it lacks the depth of connection that real-life relationships do, nor do they offer a form of security from pressing issues like becoming too needy. One could flag concerns about echo chambers when you confide with like-minded individuals over unverified information. If  Barbro Fröding and Martin Peterson  have any say, you could wax philosophical points on how the value of online friendship is devalued when you consider Aristotle’s theory. When acknowledging honesty from someone you've never met in real life, the prospect of such a bond can be scary. So, what’s the problem with these arguments?

The key problem around the presumed ‘cons’ of online friendship is that such issues have been acknowledged in long-distance relationships  ever since ancient Greece . As scary as it is to be deceived by a user with whom you would play a round of multiplayer games with now and then, lecherous and manipulative friendships have essentially been around as long as mankind has existed. Conspiracy theories and extremist beliefs existed long before the internet, documented as far back as 1863.

Numerous articles already highlight how friendship between people of varying ethnic, religious, or social backgrounds can reduce prejudice. Dr Angela Bahns’ The effect of diversity beliefs on friendship formation ’ highlights how a common belief in values can help diversify your friend group. The sheer amount of presence enabled by the internet will help ensure that you will find those you will feel comfortable with, people from other parts of the country, the continent, or even the globe.

The points above on  Aristotle’s theory of friendship  can now work on all three aspects. He breaks down the three factors of an ideal friendship as virtue, pleasure, and utility. As the younger generations lean more towards progressive change and are more open-minded in cultural divergence, they can easily find those who share their views. The prevalence of online gaming enables many to find pleasure in each other. Finally, a utility can be extracted through a reflexive approach in giving advice or looking through resources to address a concurrent problem that someone might be facing.

My fellowship with Assassin has sadly ended as they have moved on from Discord completely. However, this one experience allowed me to develop and change into someone I did not expect to become at all. It’s something that I will never take for granted; I now know people who are from Japan, the United States, Brazil, Romania, India, and many more.

Once mocked as being a worthless metric on one’s self-esteem, having online friends is now defined less by numbers and more by an emotional connection to those from the other side of the Earth. It’s weird to say it knowing how often we use the internet now, but it’s magical how we can learn more about differences through the eyes of what would’ve been a stranger. For all the fears, an online friendship is remarkable to keep as a memory, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Aspiring writer with numerous interests including gaming and esports, complex geopolitics, underground and independent music, and how history shapes our culture.

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The benefits and dangers of online friendships

When we were young, adults would constantly warn that people on the internet are all dangerous. However, as the use of social media and the internet increased,

more and more people have made friends through online social networks.

Sophomore Sam Blount met their internet friends through common interests online on platforms such as Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram.

“We got along really quickly, and that’s how I made one of my best friends”

“I have a lot of interests I’m really passionate about, and when you go onto social media you can find a lot of other people like that,” they said. “I just got put in a group chat with people with a lot of the same interests, like music and TV shows; we all got along really quickly, and that’s how I made one of my best friends.”

The use of the internet has allowed Blount to connect to people all across the world from Slovakia to Peru to Spain.

Blount feels communication through the internet allows easier connections that can develop into friendships.

“[People are] a lot easier to talk [to] in the beginning because what happens online is that people just take down their barrier that they have when talking with people that they already know,” they said. “It’s a lot easier for them to just get into what they love … so it’s easy to connect over something.”

The internet has allowed and increased the potential for new- er generations to make friends across the world. According to Pew Research Center, 57 percent of teens between the ages of 13 to 17 have made friends through the use of the internet.

Although online friends allow meeting people that one may never have met otherwise, some users are skeptical. While social media sites such as Instagram, Reddit and Twitter have made it increasingly easier for teens to communicate with people of different backgrounds, online anonymity creates a potential risk.

“I know there are catfishes out there, but a lot of people think everyone is a catfish,” Blount said. “A lot of people online are online just to find other people that they have similar interests with. I used to think of people online as just old men, but when I went online, it’s quite the opposite. Everyone is just different and there’s so much more diversity that you find online.”

Similarly, sophomore Albena Goulisheva acknowledges the dangers of internet friends.

“Some people might think [internet friends] are some creeper, some old man behind the camera,” she said. “You should really only make friends online if you know for sure if they’re real people and that they exist.”

Goulisheva feels that the ability to control what one presents online is a key aspect of real-life communication that online communication cannot replicate.

“You never know [people on the internet’s] real personality or how they would really talk or the things they think about,” Goulisheva said. “There’s not a lot of dimension to text, so you just never really know what they are really thinking.”

Sophomore Catherine Lei met her friend on Instagram through their mutual like for J.Cole and finds that being cautious when you first meet a potential online friend is essential.

“You should definitely be cautious, especially on the internet because it’s a really, really easy to cat sh people,” she said. “When you’re cautious, and you know what’s happening and you guys are both aware of the consequences and are truthful, then [online friendships] could work.”

With new technological advances, the concept of online friends and the methods of developing friendships has begun to expand and change. The increasing number of people making friends online has begun to change the stigma around talking to strangers online and may change the future of what it means to be a friend.

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• Pros and Cons of Online Friendships

Pro. You can be friends with people from different countries. The Internet has no boundaries, it allows you to meet people from across the globe and learn about their culture. Of course, there's a language barrier, but nowadays many people speak English, so it will hardly be an issue.

Con. You won't meet most of them IRL. Maybe some of your online friends live close enough and you will arrange meetings with them, but you surely won't be able to meet all of your online friends. You will never be able to hang out together, laugh at stupid jokes or hug them.

Pro. It's easier to strike up a conversation. If you're a shy person, it's probably easier for you to approach people in the online world. You can learn some background information from their user profile, take your time before answering them and end a conversation when you're feeling uncomfortable.

Con. There is no body language and intonation. Communication without body language and intonation can lead to misunderstandings. Sadly, emoticons don't always help. You need to be careful about what you're saying to prevent miscommunication.

Pro. It's easier to open up. Many people find it easier to share things with their online friends because they feel more comfortable typing the words than saying them. Besides, online friends often are less judgmental, because they are used to meeting people of different ages, sexes, and races.

Con. You can be taken advantage of. Are you really sure that they are who they seem to be? Maybe you've really found yourself a great friend, and maybe you're just being catfished. It is dangerous to provide your online friends with too much personal information too soon into your relationship.

Pro. It saves time. You don't have to go anywhere in order to meet your online friends. The only thing you need is your computer/tablet/smartphone and Internet connection. You don't have to think what to wear and you can stay at home if you don't feel like going out.

Con. You can lose yourself in the online world. Online friendships can get addicting. You might end up abandoning your real-life friends in favor of your online acquaintances. It is very important to find a balance between online and IRL friendships.

The bottom line is, online friendships are great as long as you're being careful and don't lose yourself in the computer. Online friends can be a good addition to your social circle, but they shouldn't be a replacement for your real-life friends.

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• Dating & Relationships
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• online friendships
• pros and cons of online friendships
• making friends online

Related Articles

Essay on Importance of Friendship

Students are often asked to write an essay on Importance of Friendship in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Importance of Friendship

The essence of friendship.

Friendship is a valuable treasure in our lives. It is a bond of love, trust, and mutual respect. Friends stand by us in times of joy and sorrow, making life more meaningful.

Role of Friendship

Friends teach us important life lessons. They help us understand different perspectives, fostering empathy and compassion. They also offer emotional support and help us build our confidence.

Friendship and Personal Growth

Friendship encourages personal growth. It nurtures our emotional intelligence, helps us learn to communicate effectively, and develops our problem-solving skills. True friendship is a gift that enriches our life journey.

Also check:

250 Words Essay on Importance of Friendship

Friendship, a profound human experience, is a cornerstone of our social fabric. It transcends the boundaries of race, religion, and culture, fostering an environment of mutual respect, understanding, and shared values.

Psychological Impact of Friendship

Friendship plays a critical role in our psychological well-being. It provides emotional support, helping to mitigate stress and anxiety. Friends serve as a sounding board, allowing us to express our thoughts and emotions freely, which can be therapeutic and contribute to our overall mental health.

Friendship as a Learning Platform

Friendship is also a platform for personal growth and learning. Friends expose us to diverse perspectives, encouraging us to think critically and broaden our horizons. They challenge our beliefs, prompting us to question and refine our viewpoints, fostering our intellectual growth.

The Role of Friendship in Shaping Character

Moreover, friendship shapes our character. The qualities we admire in our friends often inspire us to cultivate those traits within ourselves. They mirror our strengths and weaknesses, helping us to self-reflect and strive for personal improvement.

Friendship and Social Cohesion

On a societal level, friendships foster social cohesion. They promote empathy and tolerance, as we learn to accept our friends’ differences and appreciate our commonalities. This understanding and acceptance can extend beyond our immediate circle, promoting a more inclusive society.

In conclusion, the importance of friendship cannot be overstated. It supports our mental health, encourages personal growth, shapes our character, and promotes social cohesion. Despite its often underestimated value, friendship is an integral part of our lives, enriching our experiences and contributing to our personal and societal well-being.

500 Words Essay on Importance of Friendship

The value of friendship, emotional support and mental health.

One of the primary importances of friendship lies in its capacity to provide emotional support. Friends are our confidants, providing us a safe space to express our feelings, fears, hopes, and dreams without the fear of judgment. They provide comfort during times of stress, acting as a buffer against mental health issues like depression and anxiety. Their presence and understanding can help us navigate through the complexities of life, promoting emotional well-being.

Social Development and Personal Growth

Friendship plays a crucial role in our social development and personal growth. Friends expose us to diverse perspectives, cultures, and experiences, broadening our worldview. They challenge our beliefs, encourage us to step out of our comfort zones, and inspire us to become better versions of ourselves. This process of mutual learning and growth is a significant aspect of friendship.

Resilience in the Face of Adversity

Physical health and longevity.

The importance of friendship extends to our physical health and longevity. Studies suggest that strong social connections can contribute to a longer, healthier life. Friends can encourage positive lifestyle habits such as regular exercise and a balanced diet. Moreover, the happiness derived from friendship can boost our immune system, reducing the risk of chronic diseases.

Friendship and Society

On a larger scale, friendship contributes to societal harmony. It fosters empathy, understanding, and respect among individuals, creating a more inclusive and tolerant society. Friends from diverse backgrounds can help break down cultural and social barriers, promoting unity and cooperation.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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• Writing Essay on Friendship: 3 Samples to Get Inspired

When in school or college, you won’t escape the task of writing an essay on friendship. It’s a paper revealing the power of having friends and reflecting on the corresponding values.

It seems easy to write. You craft a narrative about your mates, explaining what they mean to you. And yet, it’s an academic paper. So, some rules are still here on how to structure and format it.

In this article, you’ll find three samples of different essays on friendship. Feel free to use them to get inspired and better understand this paper’s nature and purpose.

Let’s answer all the questions related to friendship essays together!

What Is an Essay on Friendship?

First, the definition:

An essay on friendship is a short academic paper students write to express their thoughts and reflections on the topic.

The purpose is to:

• explore the phenomenon;
• understand what it means to you;
• realize the significance of having close people nearby;
• reveal the pros and cons of committing to a friendship;
• reflect on how friendship can help our wellness.

Friendship essays aren’t about “my friends and I” topics only. You can write about the role of friendship for mental health, craft an expository essay explaining the topic, or build a reflective essay on what friendship means to you.

Friendship Essay Structure

Friendship essays have a standard structure of academic papers. They are short and consist of three parts:

• Introduction about friendship
• Paragraph about friendship
• Friendship essay conclusion

In the intro, you start with an attention grabber. Feel free to use a quote, a surprising fact, or an anecdote. Introduce the topic and finish with thesis statements about friendship.

In a friendship paragraph, you support a thesis with facts, evidence, personal stories, etc. As a rule, essay bodies have three paragraphs minimum. So you can devote each paragraph to one aspect :

• Definition of this concept 
• Why having friends is essential
• What a friend can give you
• Types of friendship  
• Challenges mates meet on their way  
• Characteristics of a good friend  
• How to strengthen a friendship, etc. 

In the essay body, you can use stories and examples from your life to illustrate points. Tell about your friends and share personal thoughts — it will make your paper more compelling to read.

In the concluding paragraph, sum up the points and restate your thesis. Finish on a positive note, leaving readers with the food for thought.

Easier said than done, huh?

Below are three samples of friendship essays for you to see what they look like and how they sound.

3 Samples to Help You Write an Essay About Friendship

While Ralph Waldo Emerson friendship essay (1) is the top example of the paper on this topic, we’ll go further and provide several NEW samples.

Please check:

Short Essay on Friendship

This sample is perfect for high school students. As a rule, teachers ask them to write 150-200-word essays. The task is to describe concepts or things the way they understand them.

Narrative Essay on Friendship

Narrative essays are more about personal stories. Here, you can tell about your friends, include dialogues , and sound less academic.

500 Words Essay Sample on Importance of Friendship

Over to You

Now, you have three samples and know how to structure this paper. Ready to write yours?

Let’s begin with the “Why is friendship important?” essay — and you’ll see that it’s not super challenging to craft. Be honest, share your thoughts, and don’t hesitate to write personal reflections on the topic.

Still don’t know how to start your essay on friendship? Our writers are here to help. 

References:

• https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/essays/friendship.html
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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Friendship — The Importance of Friendship: Building, Maintaining, and Navigating Challenges

The Importance of Friendship: Building, Maintaining, and Navigating Challenges

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Published: Feb 7, 2024

Words: 825 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

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A good friend, building and maintaining friendships, types of friendships, benefits of having friends, challenges of friendship.

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