A new report has come out saying that Americans have fewer friends than any other country!! Isn't that sad? Researchers say that we have fewer friends today than we did two decades ago. On average, each person in 2004 reported 2.08 close friends—those they can discuss important matters with. That's down from 2.94 people in 1985.
People who said they had no one with whom to discuss such matters more than doubled, to nearly 25 percent
The research also showed that people who talk only to family members about important matters increased from 57 percent to 80 percent over the two decades, while the number who depend totally on a spouse rose from 5 percent to 9 percent.
The results are based on responses from more than 1,400 American adults to the General Social Survey, conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago since 1972.
As a young college ctudent, I have noticed that it is hard to keep in touch with your old "high school" friends when you go away to college. Of course you don't want it to be like that but sometimes you have no choice. Most freshman in college don't have a car so how is one suppossed to be able to travel to a different city? Just a word of advice...the telephone will always be there. Use it just to keep in touch if you can't visit. You'll appreciate it in the long run.
The findings are published in the June 2006 issue of the journal American Sociological Review.
I think the reason why you don't keep in touch with high school friends is because they weren't really your friends in the first place. If you can't call them up and just talk about things then what did you really have in common??? I've come to this conclusion and I've accepted it. I can agree with the study because I think there is probably only one person who I can talk to and that's my sister. But I do go to family memembers with problems before I talk to anyone else. I think they would know what to do better than a friend would.
I agree. I am not going to miss most of my high school "friends" when I go away this fall.
Yes, I agree that its hard to keep in touch with your high school friends because some websites on the Internet would make you pay to get your friends' e-mail addresses, even though you might not be able to afford it and might not own a credit card.