Fewer Friends – Do You Also Suffer From A Loss Of Friends?
Friends for life! There are few of them, and they become fewer and fewer as the years go by. The general experience that the circle of friends shrinks with increasing age has even been scientifically proven.
When you’re young, you collect friends just like influencers collect followers on Instagram nowadays. New ones are always being added. When you were at school, you couldn’t invite all your peers to your house for your birthday that you wanted to have there. Today, you’re lucky if you can get just five good friends together for a birthday dinner. We’re not talking about acquaintances here, but really good friends. As we get older, such friendships become even rarer than they already are and are difficult to find or keep.
Studies show that from the age of 30, one person is lost from the circle of friends approximately every five years. It’s a kind of natural decline, so to speak. The main cause is certainly the naturally changing phases of life. Studying abroad, marriage, the birth of a child, a change of job or place of residence all cause friendships to break up.
“The clique scatters in all directions. Different lifestyles make it difficult to keep in touch,” explains Professor Eckart Hammer, a social scientist at the Evangelische Hochschule Ludwigsburg. Unfavorable for the individual, considering that humans as social creatures need a certain degree of closeness. Of course, this cannot be generalized, as this level is lower in loners than in extroverts. At least that’s what psychologists say. However, it is also difficult to prove scientifically how many close relationships a particular person needs.
Let’s call it a loss of friends
The phenomenon is not new. Prof. Dr. Cornelia Wrzus, Psychological Aging Research at the University of Heidelberg, investigated it back in 2011. During her time at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, she and three colleagues analyzed 277 studies on this topic. The core result of the meta-study “Social Network Changes and Life Events Across the Lifespan” confirmed that a person’s general social network grows during their youth. As people grow up, the number of friendships gradually decreases and continues to do so over the course of their lives.
Another result of the meta-study shed light on relationships within the family. The result was that the number of family members with whom there is close contact remains constant throughout life, but shifts: in youth, parents, uncles, aunts or grandparents tend to be important constants, while grandchildren, nephews and nieces are important constants in old age.… weiterlesen
CultureAndCream Author from Munich
To travel during my profession as a beauty journalist was never enough for my. Also my six month on a world trip didn’t do it. It always attracts me to other cities, foreign countries, on roadtrips and places I don’t know yet. But I am not only interested in “culture” and “cream”, I am also fascinated by people who have stories to tell . Such unique experiences I want to share with you.
