It’s a generational thing. For adults, especially those who grew up before the advent of Internet, the idea of meeting people online (for dating or for friends), still has a certain stigma attached to it. No matter how far technology has come and how often it’s used, a general public sentiment is that those who look for company online are weirdos, and that Facebook friends cannot be your actual friends. However, more time has passed than any of us care to admit, and that means that contemporary teenage generations have had immediate access to the Internet for essentially their entire lives. Accordingly, they do not share that stigma, and a new study from the Pew Research Center all but confirms that. According to this study, teen friendships are both made and kept through technology as teens continue to rely on their devices.
Teen Friendships: Teenagers Have More Technological Outlets Than Ever to Make Friends
To obtain conclusive data about teen friendships and technology, researchers in the study surveyed 1,000 teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17 from September 2014 to February 2015. What they found is that 57% of those surveyed made teen friendships online, and 20% even went so far as to meet in person. 55% claimed to text with their friends on a daily basis and 49% of the teenagers preferred it as their main form of communication. 27% maintained teen friendships through instant messaging, 23% through social media, and 14% through apps. Social media is a key piece to friendships, as 64% of the teens stated that they had made friends through places like Facebook and Instagram. Even more, 70% said that because of this, they felt more connected to their friends.
Boys Tend to Use Different Means To Make Friends Than Girls
According to this study, teen friendships between boys were more frequent than between girls, 62% vs. 51%. The best explanation for this is that, while teen girls were more likely to find friends through social media, the boys in the study were far more likely to meet via online video games – 84% of the boys surveyed said they play games, as opposed to 59% of the girls.
Teens Still Love Spending Time In Person
Teen friendships that exist outside of the Internet, however, aren’t going away. 95% of the teens surveyed stated that they do spend time with their friends in person. But because only a quarter are able to do so on a daily basis, it makes sense that teen friendships have become so much more prevalent and easily maintained online. Despite some protests from older tech users, it seems that social media may, in fact, be making some people more social after all.
Technology has become so advanced that real friends might soon be replaced with robots like Musio:
Teen Friendships Made and Maintained via Technology
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