Mumbai: The first Sunday of the month of August is celebrated as the International Day of Friendship across the world. The United Nations officially recognizes this day as a commemoration of promoting and defending a shared spirit of human solidarity.
For individuals, the day is more personal as people cherish their friendships and recall the friends long lost in this fast-paced world. However, in the age of technology, social media has turned into a facilitator to foster friendships without any barriers of location, time and connectivity.
Gone are the times when youngsters applied with the International Youth Service to make pen pals from across the world and start conversation with an unknown person sitting in some remote corner of the world. The exchange of letters saw a slow but steady development from strangers to acquaintances and finally friends. Similarly, friendship clubs was another good option to meet new people, plan activities and outing with them and walk the journey towards friendship.
With changing times, the social media has arrived as a better replacement for pen pals and friendship clubs as it serves the purpose efficiently and in lesser time. With the launch of Facebook in the initial year of the 21st century, people got the advantage of becoming friends with anyone within minutes just by sending a friend request.
Today, sending a follow request is all that people need to do for making friends with anyone. Along with facilitating communication, it simultaneously helps with creativity, networking and learning, thereby allowing to develop meaningful friendships.
The age of social media also affects the traditional friendships, as everyone is required to be connected with their friends on the social media for an added benefit of connecting over trending news and funny memes. Close friends are expected to be connected over all the social media platforms, whereas it has also brought along the concept of gauging the level of friendship according to the social media application.
For example, a person connected on Meta (Facebook) or X (Twitter) is usually seen as a normal friend whereas a person connected on Instagram or WhatsApp is supposed as a close friend.
According to a survey by Pew Research Centre, 94% of teenagers spend time with friends on social media and 83% of the teenagers said that social media makes them more connected to information about what is happening in their friends’ lives, while 70% say that social media connects them to their friends’ feelings in a better way.
The research also states that people are more likely to receive support from social media friends during hard times as 68% teens reported of receiving support on social media during challenging times.
Social media, although it has come in the lives of people less than two decades ago, has changed the definition and principles of friendships. Keeping its negative aspects aside, the power of social media helps people in this fast-paced world to foster friendships and maintain it.
