how friends influence your life essay

Importance of Friends in our Life for Students and Children

500+ words essay importance of friends in our life.

When we are born, we get associated with our family by blood relation. However, there is a relation, which we choose ourselves. That relation is a friend.  Friends make our life beautiful.  The adventure of life becomes beautiful when good friends surround us. We all belong to a family, where we have our parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, etc. We get immense love, care, attention and guidance from our family. However, our entire life does not revolve around our family members only. We all have our own purpose in life. Some members of our family go to school, some go to college, and our parents go to work. We all have a life outside our family. No journey of life seems interesting when traveled alone. We tend to make friends outside our family boundaries as that makes all life activities enjoyable.

Friends are Essential in Every Sphere of Life

We connect very quickly with people with whom our interests match. Infants are playful by nature. They always look for the company with whom the can play and explore their curious nature. Hence, when they meet any other infant of their age they connect easily over their common interest of playing.

In school, we make friends over our common interests. For example, students who like playing sports like cricket connect quickly and they become friends. Friends meet and discuss their common interests and nurture their interests together. Friends in school help each other in understanding the class activities, and homework. They often exchange notes and reference materials among themselves.

During our college life, we get independence in taking many decisions on our own. Also, many live in a hostel and are hence away from their family. Studying together, staying together, nurturing interest together, adjusting to conflicts with each other, helping each other all these makes the bond of friendship stronger.

A friend highlights mistakes and guides us in many ways. They also motivate us to realize our full potential. Also, we can easily discuss and share such issues and thoughts with our friends which we cannot share with our parents.

In our professional life also, friends also help us handle failure positively and multiply our joy of success. During midlife, we have huge responsibilities for family, job, etc. Discussing professional and personal stress with our friends makes us feel relaxed. They are our mental support and when we are in crisis, a good friend joins hand and helps in solving the problem.

Because of the nuclear family structure of the current society in old age, people mostly stay alone. Friends hang out and travel together to explore various places and enjoy several hobbies together. Friends thus eliminate boredom and loneliness from life. They add color to life. They become big support for any help needed.

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Famous Friendship stories

In history, we get examples of many friendship stories, which shows the importance of friend in life. From the stories of Lord Krishna and Arjun, Ram and Sugreev, Lord Krishna and Sudama, Duryodhan and Karn it shows that friends have always been a person who helps and supports us. They help us come out of distress and grow in life.

Friendship is not only between two people. We become friends with animals around us. Hence, we tend to keep pets. Pets eliminate boredom and stress from our life. Spending time with pets give us immense joy.

Animals also become friends among themselves. They also help and support each other in the process of survival and existence. The biggest example of the need of friend among animals is there in the story Lion and the Mouse where they both help each other come out of difficult situations.

In our lifetime we choose our own friends. The journey of life becomes memorable because of friends. Friendship is a lovely relation without which life seems dull. It is the relationship with our friends that teaches us to share, love, care and most importantly helps us to fight odds and be successful. Having true friends acts as a boon. Friends increase the sense of belongingness and generate a feel-good factor. We all thrive and look for at least one that friend who at times criticizes and appreciates too. Emotional and psychological attachments are important and can only be experienced with friends.

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Student Opinion

What Have Your Friends Taught You About Life?

How do you think your interests and personality might be different without your friends’ influence?

By Shannon Doyne

Think about a close friend or a small group of friends. How are you alike? How are you different? What interests or opinions do you share?

Do you think this friend or group of friends has ever influenced you to do something you otherwise wouldn’t, whether that’s trying a new activity, changing an opinion you held, or just helping you think differently about something? How?

In the Opinion essay “ What Is It About Friendships That Is So Powerful ?” David Brooks writes about a “ giant new study ” on the “transformational power of friendship” in general but specifically in reducing poverty.

Why is friendship so powerful? Mr. Brooks writes:

… your friends are not just by your side; they get inside you. If you want to help people change, help them change their friendships. We already know from the work by Yale’s Nicholas Christakis and others that behavior change happens in friend networks . If people in your friend network quit smoking, then you’re more likely to quit smoking. If your friend gains weight, you are more likely to gain weight. Heck, if one of your friend’s friends — who lives far away and whom you have never met — gains weight, then you’re more likely to gain weight, too. Our friends shape what we see as normal. If our friends decide that being 15 pounds heavier is normal and acceptable, then we’ll probably regard being 15 pounds heavier as normal, too. This is the key point. Your friends strongly influence how you perceive reality. First, they strongly influence how you see yourself. It’s very hard to measure your own worth, your own competence, unless people you admire and respect see you as worthy, see you as competent. Plus, if your friends say, “We’re all smart, talented people,” you’ll begin to see yourself that way, too. Second, your friends shape how you see the world. A few decades ago, a theorist named James J. Gibson pioneered the theory of “affordances.” The basic idea is that what you see in a situation is shaped by what you are capable of doing in a situation. Dennis Proffitt of the University of Virginia has demonstrated this theory in a bunch of ways: People who are less physically fit perceive hills to be steeper than people who are fit, because they find it harder to walk up them. People carrying heavy backpacks perceive steeper hills than people without them. The phenomenon works socioeconomically, too. Kids who grew up with college-educated parents walk onto the Princeton campus and see a different campus than kids who have never been around a college at all. Without even thinking about it, more-affluent kids might communicate to their less-affluent friends ways of seeing that make such places look less alien, less imposing, more accessible. Third, our friends alter our desires. Desire is notoriously mimetic. We want what other people want and tell us is worth wanting. If you grow up around friends who naturally aspire to be doctors and accountants and engineers, you are probably going to aspire to such things, too. Entering into a friendship can be a life-altering act, and entering into a friendship with someone different from yourself can be life-transforming.

Students, read the entire essay, then tell us:

What, if anything, in the essay reminds you of an experience you have had? Is there anything in this essay that you disagree with? What, if so?

How are your friends influencing or encouraging you right now?

The essay states that our friends shape how we see ourselves and the world as well as what we want from life. They can even “call forth parts of ourselves that don’t yet exist.” Give some examples of what you’ve witnessed or experienced yourself that support or contradict these claims.

What do you think of the essay’s claims about friends who have different socioeconomic backgrounds influencing each other without necessarily meaning to do so? Have you ever witnessed or experienced this phenomenon yourself?

Mr. Brooks describes being a camper and then an employee at a camp he describes as “the best cross-class community I’ve ever been in.” What group have you been part of that compares with this and has encouraged you to develop “social range”? How valuable do you think social range is?

Do you think it’s better to have friends who are as alike as possible or friends who are quite different? Why?

Many years from now, how do you think you’ll answer this question: “How did the friends I had during childhood and adolescence shape my life and make me who I am today?”

Want more writing prompts? You can find all of our questions in our Student Opinion column . Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate them into your classroom.

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

The Importance of Friendship

Friendships are a crucial part of living a fulfilling life..

Posted July 26, 2021 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

• Friendship makes life more enjoyable and enriches one's everyday experiences.
• Finding friends can be challenging but can be often achieved by approaching others with mutual interests.
• The first criteria one should look for in a partner is someone who is ultimately a good friend to them.

As we move through life, we find that there are many things out of our control. We can’t choose our parents, our genetics , or control the things that happen in the world around us. One thing that we can control is who our friends are, and this decision can either make our lives so much richer and beautiful, or more stressful and disappointing. Today we’ll focus on how to choose friends who enrich our lives and make them more beautiful.

Why friends are so important

Having solid friendships is important for two main reasons. First, they make life more enjoyable. We get to share the beautiful aspects of life with people who we love, which can enrich our everyday experiences. Second, our friends help us through the difficult times. Having friends to support us through hard times can make unimaginably difficult situations seem more tolerable.

The most beautiful part about pouring our time and energy into friendships is that not only do friends help enrich our lives, but we enrich theirs too! Friendships get us through the tough times in life, make things more fun and enjoyable, and all-around make our lives better. I urge you to take stock of your friendships and ask yourself if your current friends people build you up and support you, or is the friendship more one-sided?

As we explore friendships today, these are also inclusive of our partners. I believe that the foundation for any healthy relationship is friendship. So it’s important to group our romantic partners into this conversation too.

So, where do we find friends? This might sound silly, but finding friends can be challenging! When I first moved to California for my Ph.D., I didn’t have any friends out here. There were quite a few people in my program that I enjoyed spending time with. But, towards the end of school, they became very busy and were no longer able to dedicate time to hang out anymore. Thankfully, through the help of a very good therapist, I learned that it was important to enjoy life instead of striving for excellence all of the time. As a result, I learned how important it was to carve out time in my life for friends.

Unfortunately, the people I had dedicated time to thus far were achievement-oriented and were pouring their time into work and not our friendships. This forced me to seek out other ways to form connections with people. I ended up finding a local hiking group with the hopes of meeting people with similar interests. During one of these hikes, I met Jim, one of my best friends to this day.

We became instant friends. We have continued to support each other over the years, and even more importantly, we always make time for one another. We both view the friendship as one that makes each other’s lives better, therefore it’s always worth the time and energy. The backbone of any successful friendship is one where both sides put in equal effort and support.

Both Jim and I were forced to put in more effort when he moved across the country to the East Coast. Because we already had such a strong foundation, this didn’t impact our friendship. We talk all of the time and see each other several times a year. We make the relationship a priority no matter what coast each other is on. Like anything in life that is valuable to us, we must work at it and put time and effort into it.

When it's time to move on from a friendship

The second part of the friendship discussion can be a difficult one — reassessing your current friendships and potentially moving on from friends who don’t add value to your life.

Two of my best friends from high school went down different paths from me. We still keep in contact, but I don’t spend too much time with them anymore. The supporting, loving part of our relationship wasn’t there anymore, so it was no longer worth putting energy into maintaining a friendship that had changed so much.

This may be a story you can relate to. What I hope you take away from this post is this — friendships take energy, time, and commitment. And if you’re putting your time and energy into someone who isn’t enriching your life and giving you the support you need, it may be time to reevaluate that friendship.

If you find yourself in the market for friends (who isn’t?) I recommend you find groups or activities that you genuinely enjoy. This way you’ll have the opportunity to connect with people who have similar interests. And once you’re there, take a risk! Talk to people, exchange contact information, and follow up with them. It may feel scary at first, but the reward outweighs the momentary uncomfortable feeling you may have.

Friendship and dating

In many ways, the most important friendship in our lives is the one we have with our romantic partners. The first criteria we should look for in this partner is someone who is ultimately a good friend to us, meaning that they are kind, positive, loving, and supportive. If we’re dating someone and they’re a jerk, it’s probably safe to assume that they’re not a good friend. To avoid this, I recommend seeking out someone who is a good friend first, i.e. before the romance and sexual stuff gets in the way.

When there are bumps in a friendship or a romantic relationship , it’s important to work through those tough times. The tricky part is that it will take two people to fix that issue. We can only control our actions and hold ourselves accountable, but we cannot control our friend or our partner's reaction. In addition to our own actions, we have control over the friends or partners that we choose in the first place. If we prioritize choosing good people who we can trust will work through issues with us, then we can work through anything.

Friendships are a crucial part of living a fulfilling life. It’s so important that we surround ourselves with people who we have fun with, who support us, and people who make us better. You may already have beautiful friendships in your life, but if you’re still in the market for friends, it’s never too late to cultivate new relationships that will make your life even more magnificent.

Robert Puff, Ph.D. , is host and producer of the Happiness Podcast, with over 16 million downloads.

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Mind & Body Articles & More

Why your friends are more important than you think, how can you sustain your friendships in life the first step is recognizing their importance, argues author lydia denworth..

Researchers and philosophers have explored in great detail the emotional dramas of love and family. But they’ve spent much less time pondering the deep satisfaction of a good friend.

A similar thing happens in our own lives, writes science journalist Lydia Denworth. When something’s gotta give, it’s often our friendships, which take a backseat to our family and work obligations—or our latest fling.

But that’s a mistake, she argues in her new book, Friendship: The Evolution, Biology, and Extraordinary Power of Life’s Fundamental Bond . In fact, research suggests that friendships can help us find purpose and meaning, stay healthy, and live longer. The intimacy, support, equality, and emotional bonds we have in our friendships are unique.

Her book honors the relationships forged through slumber parties, shoulders cried upon, and kindnesses that don’t need to be repaid. “The science of friendship gives you permission to hang out with your friends and call it healthy,” she says. “You’re not being indulgent.” In a conversation with Greater Good , Denworth explains why we need our friends and how to keep those connections strong—even in a pandemic.

Kira Newman: How does friendship change for people across their lifespan?  


Lydia Denworth:  When you’re very young, of course, your primary social relationship is with your parents or caregivers. But when kids go to school, they start to have deeper friendships that involve, first, doing things together, and then a deeper, shared emotional element. Then in adolescence, it becomes even more abstract and relational.

All the way through high school and college, friendships can feel easy because you are thrown into an environment where you have lots of same-age peers and the pool of potential friends is big. Also, when you’re an adolescent, your brain is as attuned to social signals and connection as it will ever be. You are really hyper-interested in social activity.


Then in adulthood, as people start to have jobs and maybe get married or have a family, it can become harder to spend time with your friends. Toward the end of life, we tend to come back around to having a little bit more time once kids are grown and careers and jobs are less demanding.


There are these transition points in life when it’s easier or harder to spend time with friends, but what is important for people to know is that friendship is a lifelong endeavor and that it is something that people should be paying attention to at all points in life. I think that people sometimes think (especially in their 30s and 40s), “I just don’t have time for friends right now,” and that’s a mistake.

If you get to be 65 and then now you’re ready to start paying attention to friends, well, it’s a little bit like stopping smoking when you’re 65. If you go from 15 to 65 and you smoke the whole time, it’s still better to stop than not, but some damage will have been done. And if you don’t pay attention to friends all the way along, the same thing is true. 

KN: You observe in your book that we tend to neglect our friendships when we get busy, more so than other relationships. Can you say more about that?

LD:  The reason we do that is that we feel more beholden to our family that we’re related to, and that makes plenty of sense—we’re legally and biologically connected to our family members. So, I’m not saying that we should be spending a lot less time with family. But we also feel that spending time with friends, instead of working, is indulgent.

My message is that it is not necessarily indulgent because having good, strong friendships is as important for yourself as diet and exercise, and so it’s something you need to prioritize. If you are forever canceling on your friends or failing to make a point of seeing them or talking to them or interacting with them, then you are not being a good friend and you are not maintaining a strong relationship. You need your friends to be there down the road. But you have to do the work along the way, or they won’t be there. Friendship does take some time, but that’s kind of good news because (mostly) hanging out with your friends is fun.

The second half of the story, though, is that it’s quite normal for there to be change in our friendships over the course of a lifetime, and that’s OK. Friendship does need to be a relationship that’s longstanding, but you can cycle through several longstanding friendships in the course of your life. So, it isn’t that you can only stay friends with the people you knew when you were young, of course, because plenty of people do make friends in adulthood and those can become closer friends.

If a relationship is not healthy or even if it’s just not serving you well—if it’s not positive, if it’s really draining, or if it’s lopsided and one of you is always helping the other but not vice versa—that’s not so great. I think people need to realize that it is OK to walk away from friendships that aren’t good ones.  
 KN: That seems like the flipside of all the amazing benefits that we get when we have strong friendships: There’s a lot of potential for pain when we have difficult, conflict-ridden relationships. 


LD:  Just like a strong relationship is good for you, a negative relationship is bad for you. Even an ambivalent relationship is bad for you, it turns out, biologically. 

An ambivalent relationship is a relationship where you have positive feelings and negative feelings about the person or about your interactions with them. And that’s true of a lot of our relationships—almost half. 


Researchers had a scale of one to five: How positive does this relationship make you feel, and how negative does this relationship make you feel? Anybody who was two or above on both things counted as ambivalent, which is really broad. You could be five on the good and two on the bad. What was interesting was that any relationship that was categorized as ambivalent seemed to generate cardiovascular issues and other kinds of health problems. 


It’s not as surprising that a toxic relationship would be bad for your health. But I think that the problem with ambivalent relationships, which a lot of us have many of, is more surprising. I think most people suspect that the good outweighs the bad, and so far (it’s early days in that research) it doesn’t look that way. 

I think that all this is a reminder of the importance of working on relationships—all of them, but including your friendships. There’s real value in a positive friendship.

If it isn’t positive, then you can do a couple of things. One is you can try to make it better, work on it, have a hard conversation, perhaps. Two is you quit and you say, “I’m not going to have this person in my life,” but that can be very dramatic. And three would be that you shuffle that friend to the outer circles of your social life. Maybe it’s not someone you can easily stop seeing, but if you don’t rely on them emotionally anymore, then that’s better for you. 


KN: Are there some practices you would suggest or steps that you take in your own life to put more time and energy into friendship?  


LD:  It really does just begin as simply as paying attention and prioritizing. I try regularly to plan to get together with my close friends and the people I care about seeing a lot. We all have relatively busy lives, but I, first of all, make an effort to make the plan, and then I make an effort to get there—to show up. I think showing up is a really critical piece of friendship, in every sense of the phrase. 


It could just be that you don’t have time to get together with someone for dinner for weeks, so you have a phone call and you catch up that way. Taking time to catch up on somebody’s life and hear what’s going on with them is an important indicator of it’s worth my time to know what’s going on in your life .


In addition, I think it’s useful to remember that science has clarified the definition of a quality relationship. It has to have these minimum three things: It’s a stable, longstanding bond; it’s positive; and it’s cooperative—it’s helpful, reciprocal, I’m there for you, you’re there for me . 


When you’re interacting with your friends, you should be thinking about your side of it. Am I contributing to that? Have I been helpful lately? When was the last time I said something nice or told somebody why I appreciated them or did something nice for someone? Am I a reliable presence in that person’s life? You can think about the way you interact with your friends as needing to fall into those buckets, at a minimum. 

The same thing goes for the online, as well: being positive, being helpful, showing up from a distance, whether that’s just checking in by text or sending a funny joke or forwarding an article or calling—making time. People have been stressed and anxious lately, so we need to be there and provide an ear to listen, a shoulder to cry on, even virtually. 


KN: Right now, people in many places haven’t seen their friends for months. What do we miss out on when we can’t be around our friends in person?  


LD:  There’s a richness to being with your friends in person, and it hits all your senses. So, we’re not getting any of the tactile sense of being with our friends, and there’s a difference when you see them on a screen vs. when you see them in person, although we don’t entirely know in neuroscientific terms what those differences are yet. 


One of the things our brains do automatically when we’re having a conversation with someone in person is this natural sense of “call and response,” that I’m talking, and then you respond, and then you talk and I respond. We are reading each other’s cues in a way that makes it easier to do that.

When you’re online, sometimes not only is there a little bit of an artificialness to the interaction but there’s literally a lag that’s built in from the technology, and that is quite off-putting for our brains. Our brains recognize that as a different kind of interaction, and they don’t like it very much. I think that’s one reason why some people are being driven crazy by Zoom. And if you have a group on Zoom, it’s very hard figuring out who’s going to speak next. There’s a way that we handle that with nonverbal cues in person that is harder to pull off virtually. 


When you’re in person, you can have a much more natural conversation. There’s an ease and a warmth and a naturalness that we get when we’re with our friends, and I think we really are missing the ability to hug them and high five—that’s big stuff that matters a lot. So, it’s a loss. 

That said, people are reporting a lot of positive experiences, even remotely. We’re being forced to interact virtually, but we’re getting a lot of benefits out of it. It’s not the same, but it’s a whole lot better than nothing. Limited though it is, technology has been a lifesaver in this moment. I can’t imagine what this would have been like if we didn’t have it. 


KN: What do you most hope people will take away from the book?  

LD:  That they will make friendship a priority, that they will call a friend and work harder on thinking about the importance of being a good friend, that parents will think about talking to kids about the importance of friendship and modeling being a good friend and prioritizing it. Parents are full of messages about achievement, and not as many messages about what it means to be a good friend, but I think it’s one of the most important skills that a child can develop. Through all our lives, the importance of friendship has been hiding in plain sight.

About the Author

Kira M. Newman

Kira M. Newman is the managing editor of Greater Good . Her work has been published in outlets including the Washington Post , Mindful magazine, Social Media Monthly , and Tech.co, and she is the co-editor of The Gratitude Project . Follow her on Twitter!

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How Friends Influence Your Life: Choose Your Squad

This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Compound Effect" by Darren Hardy. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.

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How do friends influence your life? Do you think your friends have a positive influence on your long-term wellbeing?

The people with whom you closely associate are critically important because you inevitably end up doing things like them. Have you ever considered how friends influence your life?

Consider how friends influence your life and whether that influence is positive or negative.

How Do Friends Influence Your Life?

The people with whom you closely associate are critically important because you inevitably end up talking, reading, eating, thinking, watching, and otherwise doing things like them. According to one expert, your closest associations—your “reference group”— can determine much of your success in life. Jim Rohn says we are the average of the five people we associate with most.  That’s why you have to think about how friends influence your life.

Our friends influence us subtly yet powerfully, and that influence can be negative or positive. For example, if you hang out with people who order potato skins and other greasy appetizers while gossiping, you’ll soon find yourself joining right in. If, however, you hang out with people who order healthy food and talk about uplifting subjects, you’ll assimilate these behaviors. 

If you want to possess certain traits, the best way to start is by hanging out with people who already possess those traits. The habits and attitudes they possess will rub off on you, and you can then mirror that success in your own life.

Consider the people you spend the most time with and place them into one of 3 categories:

• Dissociations . These are the people you need to cut ties with. They are negative influences who don’t seem to be growing or changing in a positive direction. When you break away from these people, it won’t be easy. They will resist, seeing your positive direction as a negative reflection on them.
• Limited associations : There are people who are fine to be around for a few minutes, or a few hours, or even a few days, but any more than that creates a dampening influence on you. Look at the people in your life and see if you’re spending too much time with someone whose contact you should limit.
• Expanded associations . Find people who have positive qualities in areas of life you’d like to emulate, for example, business success or loving marriages. Make an effort to spend more time with these people, even if you have to go out of your way. Join organizations where the type of people you admire gather. If you admire an author or speaker you don’t have access to, listen to their materials and learn from them.

Expanded Associations: Mentoring

Finding a mentor is a great way to associate more with an individual whose qualities you’d like to emulate. You are never so good that you can’t benefit from a mentor. In fact, some of the most successful individuals keep learning from the best coaches and trainers there are.

———End of Preview———

Like what you just read read the rest of the world's best book summary and analysis of darren hardy's "the compound effect" at shortform ..

Here's what you'll find in our full The Compound Effect summary :

• How small, daily actions can add up to big successes (or failures)
• Why it's easier to rely on the compound effect over time instead of taking big action all at once
• How it's possible to be better off starting with a penny than $3 million
• ← Self-Awareness Is Like an Onion: Peel Back the Layers
• How to Find Mentorship: Advice for Women →

Darya Sinusoid

Darya’s love for reading started with fantasy novels (The LOTR trilogy is still her all-time-favorite). Growing up, however, she found herself transitioning to non-fiction, psychological, and self-help books. She has a degree in Psychology and a deep passion for the subject. She likes reading research-informed books that distill the workings of the human brain/mind/consciousness and thinking of ways to apply the insights to her own life. Some of her favorites include Thinking, Fast and Slow, How We Decide, and The Wisdom of the Enneagram.

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6 Friendship Benefits: Why It's Important to Stay Close to Your Friends

Arlin Cuncic, MA, is the author of The Anxiety Workbook and founder of the website About Social Anxiety. She has a Master's degree in clinical psychology.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Friendships can enrich your life in many ways. Good friends teach you about yourself and challenge you to be better. They encourage you to keep going when times get tough and celebrate your successes with you.

But friends do a lot more than give you a shoulder to cry on; they also have a positive impact on your health. Some research even says friendships are just as important to your well-being as eating right and exercising.

So how do friendships contribute to your well-being?

Friends Are Good for Your Physical Health

It turns out that healthy relationships actually contribute to good physical health. Having a close circle of friends can decrease your risk of health problems like diabetes, heart attack, and stroke.

Having strong social ties can also decrease feelings of loneliness, which evidence shows can take a toll on your longevity. According to a 2010 review, people with strong relationships have half the risk of premature death from all causes.  

Social isolation and loneliness are linked to a variety of health issues such as high blood pressure, substance abuse, heart disease, and even cancer.

Friends Encourage Healthy Behaviors

One possible explanation for those health benefits is that friendships can help you make lifestyle changes that can have a direct impact on your well-being. For example, your friends can help you set and maintain goals to eat better and exercise more.   They can also watch out for you and give a heads-up when any unhealthy behaviors (like drinking too much ) get out of hand.

Additionally, people are more motivated and likely to stick to a weight loss or exercise program when they do it with a buddy. It's much easier to get out and stay active when you have a friend by your side.

That friend may also suggest activities that you would not have considered on your own—thus, pushing you outside your comfort zone to challenge your anxiety.

Friends Give You Emotional Support

If you find yourself going through a hard time, having a friend to help you through can make the transition easier.

Research also shows that happiness is contagious among friends. One study of high school students found that those who were depressed were twice as likely to recover if they had happy friends. Likewise, kids were half as likely to develop depression if their friends had a "healthy mood."

Friends Help Build Your Confidence

Everyone has self-doubts and insecurities every now and then. But having friends who support you plays a big role in building your self-esteem , or how much you appreciate and love yourself.

Supportive friends can help you feel more confident by offering praise and reassurance when you're feeling unsure. They'll shine a light on just how amazing you are and how much you have to offer others.

Friends Help You Beat Stress

Everyone goes through stressful events. If you know you have people you can count on, you may be less likely to even perceive a tough time as stressful. 

Spending time with friends can also help reduce stress . According to Harvard Medical School, "social connections help relieve levels of stress, which can harm the heart's arteries, gut function, insulin regulation, and the immune system."

Friends can also help you cope with stressful situations. According to one small study, when children hang out with their friends during a stressful situation, they produce less cortisol, a hormone released when the body is under stress.

As the song goes: “We all need somebody to lean on.”

A lack of friends can leave you feeling lonely and without support, which makes you vulnerable to other problems such as depression and substance abuse.

Friends Push You To Be Your Best

Friends can also provide a positive influence. If you make friends with people who are generous with their time, help others, or are ambitious or family-oriented, you are more likely to develop those values yourself.  

Great friends have the power to mold you into the best version of yourself. They see you and love you for who you truly are. They encourage you and push you to do better and be the person you want to be—your "ideal self."

There are many different components of friendship. If someone is loyal to you, honest with you, shares many of your interests, and is there for you when you need them, you would likely consider them a friend.

Many of the benefits of friends could be considered evolutionary—having a group of friends can create feelings of safety and social inclusion. Caring for others, and having others that care for you in turn, can help foster a collective purpose and feelings of self-worth.

Yang YC, Boen C, Gerken K, Li T, Schorpp K, Harris KM. Social relationships and physiological determinants of longevity across the human life span . Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A . 2016;113(3):578-583. doi:10.1073/pnas.1511085112

Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Layton JB. Social relationships and mortality risk: A meta-analytic review . PLoS Med . 2010;7(7):e1000316. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316

Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Baker M, Harris T, Stephenson D. Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: A meta-analytic review . Perspect Psychol Sci . 2015;10(2):227-237. doi:10.1177/1745691614568352

Craddock E, vanDellen MR, Novak SA, Ranby KW. Influence in relationships: A meta-analysis on health-related social control . Basic Appl Soc Psych . 2015;37(2):118-130. doi:10.1080/01973533.2015.1011271

Hill EM, Griffiths FE, House T. Spreading of healthy mood in adolescent social networks .  Proc Biol Sci . 2015;282(1813):20151180. doi:10.1098/rspb.2015.1180

Harvard Medical School. The health benefits of strong relationships .

Adams RE, Santo JB, Bukowski WM. The presence of a best friend buffers the effects of negative experiences . Dev Psychol . 2011;47(6):1786-1791. doi:10.1037/a0025401

Shadur J, Hussong A. Friendship intimacy, close friend drug use, and self-medication in adolescence . J Soc Pers Relat . 2014;31(8):997-1018. doi:10.1177/0265407513516889

Houle J, Meunier S, Coulombe S, et al. Peer positive social control and men's health-promoting behaviors . Am J Mens Health . 2017;11(5):1569-1579. doi:10.1177/1557988317711605

By Arlin Cuncic, MA Arlin Cuncic, MA, is the author of The Anxiety Workbook and founder of the website About Social Anxiety. She has a Master's degree in clinical psychology.

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In What Ways Do Your Friends Influence You?

Posted in Insights , Motivational , News

Your friends influence you far beyond how they make you feel in the moment and life. In fact, they can even contribute to how long you live!

The friends you choose to have in your life undoubtedly play a significant role in who you are and who you become. They influence you socially, physically, financially...in just about every way you could imagine!

And it's not just in the moment as you're spending time with them. Even if you're laughing together, bonding, or otherwise enjoying yourself, their influence can last long after you're done visiting. 

Some studies even say that the right friends lower the risk of disease by reducing blood pressure, heart rate, and cholesterol.

The late Jim Rohn wrote that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.

It's true, the company you keep says a great deal about you.

Your Friends Influence You – Choose Them Wisely

The friends you have in your life can impact what you end up achieving in your life. If you have specific career aspirations or a desire to increase your education, it's invaluable to ensure they support who you are and what is important to you. They don't necessarily need to be on the same life path or hold the same dreams. But they need to be a positive support system and bring value to the relationship. 

Considering the way you think, feel, and behave is significantly influenced by your friends – it's imperative we choose our friends wisely. They are your people and are your most vital asset. We talk more about this in this post.  

Be careful of who you surround yourself with.

When it comes to our friends, Amy Morin advises the five reasons you should be careful who you surround yourself with:

• Strong-willed friends can increase your self-control.
• Fewer friends increase the likelihood you'll take financial risks.
• Too many social media connections can increase your stress level.
• Close friends could be the secret to longevity.
• Friends can greatly influence your choices.

Relationships thrive on optimism.  For more on optimism and the power of positivity, click here . 

It's an attitude that draws people to you. Negative people try to pull you down to their level. Most of us want to be near those who raise us up. Do you want to associate with those who bring you down, or do you want to be near those who build you up and inspire you? 

I choose to be around people who share my values and people I aspire to be like.

Friends and longevity

Let's talk more about reason #4 it's so essential to choose friends wisely: friends influence you AND even how long you might live.  Compelling research that looks into the longest-living cultures found a significant disparity between things like the foods they ate, where they lived, and how much they exercised. What wasn't different, though, was that each of the longest-living groups centers on meaningful social relationships.  In fact, another study of "309,000 people found a lack of strong relationships increased the risk of premature death from all causes by 50% – an effect on mortality risk roughly comparable to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, and greater than obesity and physical inactivity."

We may need to let some friends go to have a more meaningful life. It's hard to do, of course. But we need to consider how compatible they are with our values. You will quite possibly start acting like the people you surround yourself with. Yes – friends influence you THAT strongly.  But remember, it's not for us to tell people what we see as their shortcomings. We won't singlehandedly change them or their life. We don't have that power. But we do have the ability to be the person we want to be. 

If we spend time around people who are averse to our values, we run the risk of becoming more like them. And, fair or not, we will also be judged in life by the company we keep.

Select friends who inspire, share your values, and challenge you to become your best! When you understand how your friends influence you, it becomes even clearer why choosing them wisely matters so much. Be sure to check out  many more motivational blogs here . If you'd like to take an emotional intelligence assessment,  check this out.

This article was originally published on march 6, 2017, and has been updated (september 2020)..

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Friendships: Enrich your life and improve your health

Discover the connection between health and friendship, and how to promote and maintain healthy friendships.

Friendships can have a major impact on your health and well-being, but it's not always easy to develop or maintain friendships. Understand the importance of social connection in your life and what you can do to develop and nurture lasting friendships.

What are the benefits of friendships?

Good friends are good for your health. Friends can help you celebrate good times and provide support during bad times. Friends prevent isolation and loneliness and give you a chance to offer needed companionship, too. Friends can also:

• Increase your sense of belonging and purpose
• Boost your happiness and reduce your stress
• Improve your self-confidence and self-worth
• Help you cope with traumas, such as divorce, serious illness, job loss or the death of a loved one
• Encourage you to change or avoid unhealthy lifestyle habits, such as excessive drinking or lack of exercise

Friends also play a significant role in promoting your overall health. Adults with strong social connections have a reduced risk of many significant health problems, including depression, high blood pressure and an unhealthy body mass index (BMI). In fact, studies have found that older adults who have meaningful relationships and social support are likely to live longer than their peers with fewer connections.

Why is it sometimes hard to make friends or maintain friendships?

Many adults find it hard to develop new friendships or keep up existing friendships. Friendships may take a back seat to other priorities, such as work or caring for children or aging parents. You and your friends may have grown apart due to changes in your lives or interests. Or maybe you've moved to a new community and haven't yet found a way to meet people.

Developing and maintaining good friendships takes effort. The enjoyment and comfort friendship can provide, however, makes the investment worthwhile.

What's a healthy number of friends?

Quality counts more than quantity. While it may be good to cultivate a diverse network of friends and acquaintances, you may feel a greater sense of belonging and well-being by nurturing close, meaningful relationships that will support you through thick and thin.

What are some ways to meet new friends?

It's possible to develop friendships with people who are already in your social network. Think through people you've interacted with — even very casually — who made a positive impression.

You may make new friends and nurture existing relationships by:

• Staying in touch with people with whom you've worked or taken classes
• Reconnecting with old friends
• Reaching out to people you've enjoyed chatting with at social gatherings
• Introducing yourself to neighbors
• Making time to connect with family members

If anyone stands out in your memory as someone you'd like to know better, reach out. Ask mutual friends or acquaintances to share the person's contact information, or — even better — to reintroduce the two of you with a text, email or in-person visit. Extend an invitation to coffee or lunch.

To meet new people who might become your friends, you have to go to places where others are gathered. Don't limit yourself to one strategy for meeting people. The broader your efforts, the greater your likelihood of success.

Persistence also matters. Take the initiative rather than waiting for invitations to come your way and keep trying. You may need to suggest plans a few times before you can tell if your interest in a new friend is mutual.

For example, try several of these ideas:

• Attend community events. Look for groups or clubs that gather around an interest or hobby you share. You may find these groups online, or they may be listed in the newspaper or on community bulletin boards. There are also many websites that help you connect with new friends in your neighborhood or city. Do a Google search using terms such as [your city] + social network, or [your neighborhood] + meet ups.
• Volunteer. Offer your time or talents at a hospital, place of worship, museum, community center, charitable group or other organization. You can form strong connections when you work with people who have mutual interests.
• Extend and accept invitations. Invite a friend to join you for coffee or lunch. When you're invited to a social gathering, say yes. Contact someone who recently invited you to an activity and return the favor.
• Take up a new interest. Take a college or community education course to meet people who have similar interests. Join a class at a local gym, senior center or community fitness facility.
• Join a faith community. Take advantage of special activities and get-to-know-you events for new members.
• Take a walk. Grab your kids or pet and head outside. Chat with neighbors who are also out and about or head to a popular park and strike up conversations there.

Above all, stay positive. You may not become friends with everyone you meet but maintaining a friendly attitude and demeanor can help you improve the relationships in your life. It may also sow the seeds of friendship with new acquaintances.

How does social media affect friendships?

Joining a chat group or online community might help you make or maintain connections and relieve loneliness. However, research suggests that use of social networking sites doesn't necessarily translate to a larger offline network or closer offline relationships with network members. In addition, remember to exercise caution when sharing personal information or arranging an activity with someone you've only met online.

How can I nurture my friendships?

Developing and maintaining healthy friendships involves give-and-take. Sometimes you're the one giving support, and other times you're on the receiving end. Letting friends know you care about them and appreciate them can help strengthen your bond. It's as important for you to be a good friend as it is to surround yourself with good friends.

To nurture your friendships:

• Be kind. This most-basic behavior remains the core of successful relationships. Think of friendship as an emotional bank account. Every act of kindness and every expression of gratitude are deposits into this account, while criticism and negativity draw down the account.
• Be a good listener. Ask what's going on in your friends' lives. Let the other person know you are paying close attention through eye contact, body language and occasional brief comments such as, "That sounds fun." When friends share details of hard times or difficult experiences, be empathetic, but don't give advice unless your friends ask for it.
• Open up. Build intimacy with your friends by opening up about yourself. Being willing to disclose personal experiences and concerns shows that your friend holds a special place in your life, and it may deepen your connection.
• Show that you can be trusted. Being responsible, reliable and dependable is key to forming strong friendships. Keep your engagements and arrive on time. Follow through on commitments you've made to your friends. When your friends share confidential information, keep it private.
• Make yourself available. Building a close friendship takes time — together. Make an effort to see new friends regularly, and to check in with them in between meet ups. You may feel awkward the first few times you talk on the phone or get together, but this feeling is likely to pass as you get more comfortable with each other.

Manage your nerves with mindfulness. You may find yourself imagining the worst of social situations, and you may feel tempted to stay home. Use mindfulness exercises to reshape your thinking. Each time you imagine the worst, pay attention to how often the embarrassing situations you're afraid of actually take place. You may notice that the scenarios you fear usually don't happen.

When embarrassing situations do happen, remind yourself that your feelings will pass, and you can handle them until they do.

Yoga and other mind-body relaxation practices also may reduce anxiety and help you face situations that make you feel nervous.

Remember, it's never too late to develop new friendships or reconnect with old friends. Investing time in making friends and strengthening your friendships can pay off in better health and a brighter outlook for years to come.

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• Holt-Lunstad J. Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors: The power of social connection in prevention. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine. 2021; doi: 10.1177/15598276211009454.
• Loneliness and social isolation — tips for staying connected. National Institute on Aging. https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/loneliness-and-social-isolation-tips-staying-connected. Accessed Dec. 16, 2021.
• Bystritsky A. Complementary and alternative treatments for anxiety symptoms and disorders: Physical, cognitive, and spiritual interventions. https://www.uptodate.com/contents/search. Accessed Dec. 16, 2021.
• Oshio T, et al. Association between the use of social networking sites, perceived social support, and life satisfaction: Evidence from a population-based survey in Japan. PLoS One. 2020; doi: 10/1371/journal.pone.0244199.
• Wilkinson A, et al. Maintenance and development of social connection by people with long-term conditions: A qualitative study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2019; doi:10.3390/ijerph16111875.
• Suragarn U, et al. Approaches to enhance social connection in older adults: An integrative review of literature. Aging and Health Research. 2021; doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ahr.2021.100029.
• Holt-Lunstad J. The major health implications of social connection. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 2021; doi: 10.1177/0963721421999630.
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Social relations and life satisfaction: the role of friends

Viviana amati.

1 Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences, ETH, Weinbergstr.109, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland

Silvia Meggiolaro

2 Department of Statistical Sciences, Via C. Battisti, 241, 35121 Padua, Italy

Giulia Rivellini

3 Department of Statistical Sciences, Catholic University, Largo Gemelli, 1, 20123 Milan, Italy

Susanna Zaccarin

4 Department of Economics, Business, Mathematics and Statistics, University of Trieste, P.le Europa 1, 34127 Trieste, Italy

Social capital is defined as the individual’s pool of social resources found in his/her personal network. A recent study on Italians living as couples has shown that friendship relationships, beyond those within an individual’s family, are an important source of support. Here, we used data from Aspects of Daily Life , the Italian National Statistical Institute’s 2012 multipurpose survey, to analyze the relation between friendship ties and life satisfaction. Our results show that friendship, in terms of intensity (measured by the frequency with which individuals see their friends) and quality (measured by the satisfaction with friendship relationships), is positively associated to life satisfaction.

Introduction

The concept of social capital and its analysis has attracted the attention of several disciplines (economics, sociology, psychology, etc.) in the past 40 years. Starting from the seminal works of Coleman ( 1988 ), a multitude of social capital definitions and conceptualizations has been proposed (e.g., Durlauf and Fafchamps 2005 ).

The main concept present in all of the current definitions is that social capital is a resource that resides in the networks and groups which people belong to, rather than an individual characteristic or a personality trait. Portes ( 1998 ) defined social capital as “the ability of actors to secure benefits by virtue of their membership in social networks or other social structures,” stressing that whereas “economic capital is in people’s bank accounts and human capital is inside their heads, social capital inheres in the structure of their relationships” (p. 7). Lin et al. ( 2001 , p. 24) defined social capital as “resources embedded in a network, accessed, and used by actors for actions.”

The term “network” is used to describe the ties and social relationships in which an individual is embedded. A network is composed of a finite set of actors and the relations among them. There are two primary types of networks: complete and ego-centered. While complete networks describe the links between all members of a group, ego-centered networks are defined by “looking at relations from the orientation of a particular person” (Breiger 2004 , p. 509), that is called ego, and therefore, ego-centered networks focus on an ego and his/her relations with a set of alters.

Recognizing the importance of identifying individuals’ networks to understand many phenomena (e.g., social support, socioeconomic mobility, social integration, health conditions), several national and international surveys (e.g., the Generations and Gender Surveys, the International Social Survey Programme and the European Quality of Life Survey, and the Italian Multipurpose surveys) provide information on the ego-centered network of each respondent. This data might be used to investigate network-based sources of social capital at individual level, even though these surveys are neither network-oriented nor social capital-oriented. Because of the availability of these broad surveys that measure both social relations and aspects of an individual’s life, more studies have considered the potential role of social networks in the life of individuals.

One branch of research has focused on the link between the characteristics and composition of social networks and the variety of support (emotional, material, and instrumental) available and/or received by individuals (Zhu et al. 2013 ; Amati et al. 2017 ). Another issue commonly considered in the literature is the influence of an individual’s social interactions on his or her behaviors, such as fertility choices (Bernardi et al. 2007 ; Keim et al. 2009 ). Finally, the role of social networks on an individual’s well-being has also been examined (Taylor et al. 2001 ; Haller and Hadler 2006 ; Powdthavee 2008 ).

The practical use of multipurpose surveys for the analysis mentioned above is clearly worthwhile. These types of surveys offer a large amount of information, allowing researchers to study the role of social capital in a variety of outcome variables controlling for individual and group-level characteristics. In the long term, repeated surveys might also provide longitudinal data for further investigation on whether social capital and its role in an individual’s life change over time. The data collected from general surveys can also be analyzed to provide hints on certain phenomena (e.g., quality of life, social and family life, lifestyle, friendship) when specific surveys are not available.

The current study supplements research that considers the role of resources embedded in a social network for an individual’s subjective well-being. In this paper, a particular facet of social capital is analyzed: the role of friends as alters in ego-centered networks (Breiger 2004 ). This choice stemmed from a recent study on Italians living in couple, which showed that friendship relationships are valuable sources of support (e.g., instrumental, emotional, and companionship) that supplement the support inherent in traditional or expected ties to parents and relatives (Amati et al. 2015 ). This paper examines the role of friends in an individual’s subjective well-being, which is measured by life satisfaction.

Data was obtained from the multipurpose survey “Aspects of Daily Life,” collected by the Italian National Statistical Institute (Istat) in 2012. The focus of the current study is on individuals aged 18–64 years old. This data allows investigation of friendship’s effects on life satisfaction, measuring in terms of the frequency with which individuals see their friends (intensity) and the satisfaction with friendship relationships (quality). The underlying hypothesis is that friendship relationships influence life satisfaction through the potential (instrumental and emotional) resources that friends may provide. Those resources depend on both the presence of friends (measured in terms of frequency of meeting friends) and on the quality of the friendship (friendship satisfaction).

The paper is organized as follows: the “ Background ” section provides a review of the studies that considered the link between friendship and life satisfaction, with particular attention on the importance of distinguishing friendship network characteristics in terms of intensity and quality of the relations with friends (“ Quality and quantity in friendship relationships ” section). Survey data and the strategy of analysis are described in the “ Data and methods ” section. Results are reported in the “ Results ” section and discussed in the “ Concluding remarks ” section.

Social relations, friendship, and life satisfaction

Subjective well-being refers to the many types of evaluations that people make of their lives (Diener 2006 ) and is conceptualized and measured in different ways and with different proxies (Kahneman and Deaton 2010 ; Dolan and Metcalfe 2012 ).

Although life satisfaction is only one factor in the general construct of subjective well-being, it is routinely used as a measure of subjective well-being in many studies (e.g., Fagerstrӧm et al. 2007 ; Ball and Chernova 2008 ; Shields et al. 2009 ). In particular, life satisfaction, referring to a holistic evaluation of the person’s own life (Pavot and Diener 1993 ; Peterson et al. 2005 ), concerns the cognitive component of the subjective well-being. Another commonly used measure for subjective well-being is happiness (Diener 2006 ), often used interchangeably with life satisfaction.

There is substantial evidence in the psychological and sociological literature that individuals with richer networks of active social relationships tend to be more satisfied and happier with their lives. This positive role of social relationships on subjective well-being may be explained by the benefits they bring. First, relationships, being key players in affirming an individual’s sense of self, satisfy the basic human need for belongingness (Deci and Ryan 2002 ) and are a source of positive affirmation. The levels of subjective well-being increase with the number of people an individual can trust and confide in and with whom he or she can discuss problems or important matters. On the other hand, these levels decrease with a surplus presence of acquaintances or strangers in the network (see Burt 1987 ; Taylor et al. 2001 ; Powdthavee 2008 ).

Second, the presence of social relationships has positive impacts on mental and physical health, contributing to an individual’s general well-being, whereas the absence of social relationships increases an individual’s susceptibility to psychological distress (Campbell 1981 ; Nguyen et al. 2015 ). Several studies have shown that social relations stimulate individuals to fight diseases (Myers 2000 ) and reinforce healthy behaviors (Putnam 2000 ). Social interactions have the potential to protect individuals at risk (e.g., encouraging them to develop adjustment techniques to face the difficulties) and promote positive personal and social development, which diminishes the exposure to various types of stress (Myers 2000 ; Halpern 2005 ) and increases the ability to cope with it.

Finally, social relationships form a resource pool for an individual. These resources can take several forms, such as access to useful information, company (e.g., personal and intimate relationships, time spent talking together, and shared amusement time or meals), and emotional (e.g., advice about a serious personal or family matter) and instrumental (e.g., economic aid, administrative procedures, house-keeping) support. Several studies have detailed how receiving support contributes to higher well-being, although the effects may vary by the type and the provider(s) of support (Merz and Huxhold 2010 ). In a wider perspective, social relationships serve as buffers that diminish the negative consequences of stressful life events, such as bereavement, rape, job loss, and illness (Myers 2000 ). The perceived availability of support or received support from others may, indeed, lead to a more benign appraisal of a negative situation.

In this view, friendships, considered as voluntary relationships that involve a variety of activities, may contribute significantly to the overall subjective well-being (Clark and Graham 2005 ). Friends are only one of the possible alters in an ego-centered network, as represented by Fig.  1 . At the same time, they are the only alters that a person chooses as a node that belongs to his/her personal network while parents, siblings, and relatives are “the family you are born with”, and neighbors and coworkers are people an individual usually encounters in a preexisting situation, “friends are the family you choose” (Wrzus et al. 2012 , p. 465).

Ego and kinds of alters in an ego-centered network

As for many relationships, friendship strongly depends on meeting opportunities (Verbrugge 1977 ; Feld 1981 ), as determined by social settings (Pattison and Robins 2002 ), and the decision of individuals to establish a certain friendship tie. This indicates that friendship is often related to positive interpersonal relationships which are important and meaningful to an individual and satisfy various provisions (intimacy, support, loyalty, self-validation). In addition, support from friends is usually voluntary, sustained only by feelings of affection, mutuality, and love (Yeung and Fung 2007 ), but not motivated by moral obligations (typical of family ties, Merz et al. 2009 ).

Recent years witnessed the growth of social contexts where the importance of friends is increasing. First, sociodemographic changes, such as the reduction in the number of children in each family and a weakening of traditional communities like churches and extended families, raise the relevance of friends in the network (Suanet and Antonucci 2017 ). Second, family and marital relationships have also changed over the last few decades; through divorce and remarriage, they appear more complex and less robust. The breakup of the immediate household and of the extended family can have direct implications on the relationships among the household members. Friends can substitute, in a certain sense, the traditional family (Ghisleni 2012 ), offering invaluable advice, support, and companionship.

Only the positive consequences of friendship on well-being have been considered so far. However, friendships might also play a negative role for an individual’s well-being. Concerning the need for belongingness, some friends may be disturbed individuals and thus have a damaging effect on an individual (Halpern 2005 ); in addition, the fear of being criticized or excluded may also have a negative impact on well-being. As to the health motivation friends might encourage individuals toward unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking or overeating (Schaefer et al. 2012 ; Huang et al. 2014 ). Finally, unfulfilled expectations may negatively affect the benefits derived from support. Despite these potentially negative influences, friendships are generally expected to have a positive role in an individual’s well-being (Van Der Horst and Coffè 2012 ).

Quality and quantity in friendship relationships

Friendship relationships can recall both quantitative and qualitative dimensions. For instance, asking about having or not having friendship ties is often related to the count of the number of friends; similarly, evaluating the degree of mutual concern and interest calls for a quantitative measure, such as the duration of friendship or the frequency of interaction. Distinguishing between best friends and friends, real or close friends, “really true” or “not true” friends (Boman IV et al. 2012 ) is qualitative measures of friendship relationships. The qualitative aspects are determined by the fact that friendship relations might be close, intense, and supportive at different levels. In general, the closer the friendship, the more evident the various qualitative attributes of friendship (Demir and Özdemir 2010 ).

The different definitions of friendship emphasize both the qualitative dimension and the interactive sphere of friendship. Alberoni ( 1984 ) defined friendship as “a clear, trusted, and confident feeling” (p.11). Hays ( 1988 ), based on a review of theoretical and empirical literature, suggested a more comprehensive definition of friendship, wherein “a voluntary interdependence between two persons over time, that is intended to facilitate socio-emotional goals of the participants, and may involve varying types and degrees of companionship, intimacy, affection, and mutual assistance” (p. 395). The Encyclopedia Britannica defines friendship as a “state of enduring affection, esteem, intimacy, and trust between two people” (Berger et al. 2017 ). All these definitions indicate that friendship is recognized as a dyadic relationship by both members of the relationship and is characterized by a bond or tie of reciprocated affection. It is not obligatory, carrying with it no formal duties or legal obligations to one another, and is typically egalitarian in nature and almost always characterized by companionship and shared activities (Berger et al. 2017 ).

The network perspective emphasizes the dyadic nature of friendship and stresses the quantitative dimension of friendship relationships in terms of the “strength” of an interpersonal tie, where “the strength of a tie is a (probably linear) combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy (mutual confiding), and the reciprocal services which characterize the tie” (Granovetter 1973 p. 1361).

The analysis of the interaction between friendships and personal well-being or life satisfaction is strongly influenced by the available data, which often regards the quantitative dimension of friendships. Several studies have emphasized how this dimension affects an individual’s well-being through the benefits friendship brings. In particular, a large number of friends, as well as more contact with these friends and a low heterogeneity of the friendship network, are related to more social trust, less stress, and better health (McCamish-Svensson et al. 1999 ; Van Der Horst and Coffè 2012 ). From the point of view of support, having many friends and frequent contact with them increases the chance of receiving help when needed (Van Der Horst and Coffè 2012 ). More broadly, the frequency of meeting a friend can be an indicator of the strength or intensity of the relationship (Haines et al. 1996 ). Stronger relationships might imply increased knowledge of an individual’s needs, thus creating a stronger source of potential help. Regarding the qualitative dimension, empirical research is quite scanty; however, what is available shows that satisfaction with a friendship is strictly related to an individual’s well-being and life satisfaction (Diener and Diener 2009 ; Froneman 2014 ).

Taking into account both the questionnaire constraints and the research focus on studying the role of friends in life satisfaction, this study focused on adulthood and measured the quantitative dimension of friendship through the intensity of interaction (“frequency of meeting friends”) and the qualitative dimension through the satisfaction with friendship relationships. The hypotheses that the intensity of relations with friends might have a different effect depending on the level of satisfaction with these relations were tested. A faithful frequency of contacts with friends, together with positive satisfaction with friendship relationships, connects individuals to a range of extra benefits, including a higher sense of belongingness, better health, and more support (Van Der Horst and Coffè 2012 ).

Data and methods

The multipurpose survey “aspects of daily life”.

Data was drawn from the cross-sectional, multipurpose survey “Aspects of Daily Life,” carried out in Italy by Istat. Conducted annually since 1993, it is a large sample survey that interviews a sample of approximately 50,000 people in about 20,000 households. It collects information on several dimensions of life for each individual, including basic socio-demographic characteristics of individuals (age, sex, education) and of their households (socio-economic status and family structure) and information on health, lifestyle, religious practices, and social integration.

Starting in 2010, the survey investigated life satisfaction for individuals aged over 14, asking the following question: “How satisfied are you with your life on the whole at present?” Answers range between 0 (not satisfied at all) and 10 (very satisfied). These levels of life satisfaction represent a crude measurement of the underlying continuous variable, i.e., life satisfaction, which cannot be measured on a continuous scale.

The current study focuses on the most recent survey data (2012) and considers the life satisfaction of 25,190 individuals (ages 18–64). Figure  2 reports the percentage distributions of these individuals according to their life satisfaction. It demonstrates that the proportions of individuals who declared indexes of life satisfaction under 5 are quite low; those with life satisfaction equal to 5, however, are not negligible. On the whole, only 17.5% of individuals declared a life satisfaction under 6. Most individuals (64.4%) seem to be quite satisfied in their life, declaring values equal to or greater than 7.

Percentage distributions of individuals aged 18–64 according to their life satisfaction

Next, to the question on life satisfaction, there are two additional questions collecting information on two different aspects of friendship relationships: the frequency at which individuals usually meet their friends in their leisure time and the satisfaction of individuals with friendship relationships over the previous 12 months. The first aspect can be seen as a proxy for the intensity of friendships interaction. Response options of the corresponding question consisted of 1 = every day, 2 = more than once per week, 3 = once per week, 4 = several times (but less than 4) per month, 5 = sometimes per year, 6 = never, and 7 = without friends. In the following analyses, these seven categories are grouped 1 to distinguish individuals meeting their friends as follows: more than once a week (1, 2), once a week or several times a month (3, 4), and less often or not having friends (5, 6, 7).

The second question concerns satisfaction of individuals with friendship relationships understood as the quality of friendships. This satisfaction can be considered as a proxy for the quality of friendship. The corresponding question response options consisted of 1 = very satisfied, 2 = quite satisfied, 3 = not very satisfied, and 4 = not satisfied at all. In the following analyses, the last two categories are grouped together because of the low proportions of individuals indicating no satisfaction at all in friendships. Table  1 reports the distribution of individuals according to both of these key variables describing friendship. The data shows that most individuals meet friends more than once a week and are quite satisfied with the friendship relationship.

Percentage distributions of individuals aged 18–64 according to their friendship relationships

Table  2 shows that friendship and life satisfaction are related. Individuals meeting their friends more often and declaring themselves more satisfied with their friendship relationships tend to have a higher life satisfaction when compared to people who rarely meet their friend and/or are not satisfied with their relationships. In addition, the association between these variables describing friendship relationships and life satisfaction is statistically significant ( χ 2  = 2288.2, df = 20, p value < 0.001 and χ 2  = 394.04, df = 20, p value < 0.001, respectively, for friendship satisfaction and frequency of contacts). However, these associations may be due to other compositional factors. Younger individuals meet their friends more often than older ones, and literature has shown that life satisfaction is higher among younger people (Demir et al. 2015 , Walen and Lachman 2000 ). Thus, the role of friendship has to be examined using multivariate analyses, while controlling for a series of other variables.

Some descriptive indicators of an individual’s life satisfaction according to their friendship relationships

Methods and strategy of analysis

A multilevel logistic regression model was estimated to investigate the relation between life satisfaction (dependent variable) and the frequency of meeting friends and the satisfaction of friendship relationships (explanatory variables), controlling for several covariates. The choice of a random intercept logistic regression model was motivated by both the data structure and the level of measurements of the dependent variable.

Specifically, the data shows a nested structure, where the first-level units are the individuals and the second-level units are the families. To control for the nested structure, we considered a multilevel model, rather than simply correcting the estimated standard errors for the presence of clustered units in the sample. The limited number of individuals belonging to the same family (the 99% of the families has a size smaller than four) might be problematic for the methods because of the correction of the standard errors (Leoni 2009 ).

Regarding the dependent variable, the fact that it is measured on an ordinal scale should be considered. Several models have been proposed for the analysis of ordinal variables, among them the ordinal logistic regression model (Agresti 2010 ). This model is the extension of the multinomial logit model to ordinal variables. One of the fundamental assumptions underlying the ordinal logistic regression model is the proportional odds assumption, requiring that the relationship between each pair of outcome categories is the same. When this assumption is violated, the estimates might be biased and the standard errors might be either underestimated or overestimated, leading to misleading conclusions derived from ordinal regression models. An alternative is available in the partial ordinal logistic regression model which relaxes the assumption of proportional odds, allowing the parameters to vary across the level of the dependent variables, but yielding a less parsimonious model.

The analyzed data provides evidence against the assumption of proportional odds ( χ 2  = 4456, df = 414, p value < 0.001); therefore, a partial ordinal logistic regression would be adequate. However, the number of categories of the dependent variable is far from negligible, and estimating such a model would yield a non-parsimonious model that is difficult to be interpreted. Consequently, we analyzed the association between life satisfaction and the two dimensions of friendship in a standard multilevel logistic regression setting where the dependent variable is recoded into categories, obtained using different thresholds.

Several variations on recoding have been considered to test the robustness of the model to the choice of the threshold. We considered three binary categorizations, using threshold 6 (usually conceived as “sufficiency,” since it is the mark distinguishing between pass and fail in tests at school in Italy), 7 (the mean satisfaction score in the sample), and 8, which is the threshold value used by Istat ( 2015 , 2016 ). After that, the corresponding multilevel binary logistic regression was estimated. A categorization into three levels (< 6, 6, and 7, ≥ 8) was also considered and a multilevel multinomial logistic regression model was used for the estimation. This model did not reach convergence because of the high percentage (40%) of second-level units (family), including only one first-level unit (individual). In the following, only the results deriving from the multilevel binary logistic regression, which is briefly described in the following lines, were reported.

Let N be the number of second level units and n j ( j = 1 ,…, N ) be the number of first level units in group j . Let Y ij denote the dichotomous variable taking value 1 if the life satisfaction of an individual is at least 7 and 0 otherwise. The two outcomes are coded as “satisfied” and “not satisfied”, respectively. Variables that are potential explanations for Y ij are denoted by X 1 , …, X k . Let π ij be the probability that an individual i in the group j is satisfied. A logistic random intercept model expresses the logit of π ij as a sum of a linear function of the explanatory variables and a random second-level (family)-dependent error ε 0j :

where β k are statistical parameters that need to be estimated from the data.

Control variables

Following previous studies (see for instance Huxthold et al. 2013 ), other explanatory variables were included in the model to allow for consideration of the net association between life satisfaction and the two aspects of friendship. First, variables measuring potential social relations were included in the model. Results were controlled for the social integration and active lifestyle. Social integration was inserted into the models because of its importance for subjective well-being (as discussed in the “ Social relations, friendship, and life satisfaction ” section) and was measured considering the participation in meetings organized by political parties, trade union organizations, or by other (e.g., voluntary or cultural) associations in the year prior to the interview. Individuals who participated in at least one of these activities were distinguished from those with no participation. An active lifestyle was considered for its benefits on physical and psychological health (see, for example, Hassmén et al. 2000 ). It was measured using a covariate that described physical activities and distinguished individuals as follows: playing sports regularly, those engaged in physical activity at least once a week, and those who were physically active less often or who were sedentary. Attendance at religious services was also included in the model, both for the social networks that people find in religious organization and for the private and subjective aspects of religion (Lim and Putnam 2010 ). This control variable is defined by three categories of attendance: at least once a week, sometimes in a month or in a year, and never.

Next, the multivariate analyses are controlled for a series of covariates grouped into three main domains which the literature has shown to be important for life satisfaction (see, for example, Siedlecki et al. 2008 ; Meggiolaro and Ongaro 2015 ): socio-economic and demographic characteristics, health status, and personality traits. The socio-economic background of individuals included their age, gender, education, employment status, and their family’s economic situation and structure. Education is controlled for through a covariate with three categories: low (junior high school or lower), middle (secondary school), and high (post-secondary education). Regarding employment status, we distinguished employed 2 individuals from those who declared themselves to be unemployed and those who were out of the labor force (housewives, students, retired people, etc.). The family economic situation is measured through a question that subjectively evaluates family economic resources. A dichotomous covariate differentiated individuals in families with poor or insufficient resources from those with very good or good resources. Family structure was investigated keeping track of both the type of family and an individual’s position in the family. Individuals were distinguished as follows: individuals who are paired with another and with children, individuals who are paired with another without children, individuals who are children in households with at least one parent, individuals who are parents in single-parent families, and all other cases.

Health status was measured considering three subjective indicators of health: limitations, self-analysis of health, and self-satisfaction with health. The first measured the presence of limitations and was based on individuals reporting any limitations on typical, day-to-day activities. These limitations were defined in three categories: severe limitations, only mild limitations, and no limitations. The second indicator was obtained by a question asking individuals how they viewed their health; the five available responses were grouped into three categories: good (excellent or good), fair, and poor (poor and very poor) health. The final subjective indicator was measured by an individual’s satisfaction with health, grouped into three categories: very satisfied, quite satisfied, and not satisfied (including individuals who declared themselves as not very satisfied or not satisfied at all).

An individual’s personality was identified through two indicators. The first was obtained from a question investigating whether individuals trust people; the results distinguished those who declared that most people can be trusted from those who thought that they must be very careful. The second indicator was obtained from a question asking individuals for their views on future and personal situations, with four response options: the situation will improve, it will remain the same, the situation will worsen, and “do not know.” In the analyses, the individuals were grouped into optimistic, pessimistic, and indifferent categories; the last merging people who did not know with those who declared the situation will remain the same. Along the same lines, an individual’s satisfaction on specific aspects of life, ranging from employment 3 and economic resources to family relationships and leisure time, was taken into account by the model. 4 Identical to questions on friendship relationships, the corresponding response options consisted of the following: 1 = very satisfied, 2 = quite satisfied, 3 = not very satisfied, and 4 = not satisfied at all. In the following analyses, the last two categories are grouped as one.

Finally, the results were controlled for the geographical area of residence (north-west, north-east, center, and south), and the type of municipality (distinguishing, by way of population count, metropolitan areas and suburbs from other towns) for the potential importance of economic, social, environmental, and urban development of the area in which individuals live (González et al. 2011 ).

Before estimating the model, associations among the explanatory variables were checked using the normalized mutual information. All the values were close to 0, thereby suggesting the absence of strong correlation among the control variables.

As described in the “ Methods and strategy of analysis ” section, three thresholds have been used to categorize the dependent variable and investigate the robustness of the model to the choice of the threshold. The corresponding, multilevel logistic regression models lead to the same estimated effects, thereby indicating that the model is robust to the choice of the threshold. Here, we report only the results 5 considering the threshold value 7 (Table  3 ). The appropriateness of the multilevel specification to account for the data structure as revealed by the intercept variance significance should be noted.

Coefficient estimates ( β ) and their standard errors (s.e.), odds ratios (OR), and their 95% confidence interval of the binary logistic multilevel model for the life satisfaction (probability of being satisfied)

Significant parameter at * p  < .1, ** p  < .05, *** p  < .01

The demographic characteristics are considered first. Gender is not significant, suggesting that there are no differences in life satisfaction between men and women. The parameters associated with the age are both significant, suggesting that there is a quadratic relation between life satisfaction and age. The linear combination of the estimates indicates that the oldest people tend to be more satisfied than the youngest. It is observed that individuals with a high level of education tend to be less satisfied than those possessing a lower or medium level of education. These results can be related to the different expectations the young (more eager for life) and, to some extent, more educated people (more acute in the evaluation of their living conditions) have with respect to those who are older and less educated. Regarding the age effect, the difference with the aforementioned literature might be due to a diverse context of analysis and/or to the choice of other control variables.

The coefficients of the variables related to the economic status show that employed people (particularly those who declared to be very satisfied with their work) with adequate economic resources tend to be more satisfied than the others. The coefficients related to the family’s structure suggest that individuals living in couples (with or without children) tend to be more satisfied with their life when compared to people living in other family structures.

Social integration and active lifestyle, with all its aspects, also play an important role. The more integrated an individual is, the more satisfied he/she is, as suggested by the positive coefficient related to social integration. The model estimates also suggest that people attending religious services (regularly or sometimes in a year) tend to be more satisfied with their life than people not attending religious services. A similar result is observed for physical activities, where a moderate physical activity leads to higher life satisfaction. The negative coefficients of the health status, measured by the individual subjective perception indicate that a worse health status correlates to a lower life satisfaction. Similarly, the coefficients related to the presence of limitations indicate that individuals with severe limitations tend to be less satisfied than those who do not have limitations.

An individual’s personality traits also affect life satisfaction. Trusting other people and having a positive attitude increase the probability of having high life satisfaction. Similarly, the data suggests that an individual’s high satisfaction with facets of their life (economic, health and family relationships, and free time) correlates to a higher life satisfaction.

Finally, the coefficients related to variables concerning the geographical area individuals live in suggest that living in the north-west area increases the probability of being satisfied. For the type of municipality, the model suggests that individuals living in a town with more than 2000 inhabitants, but less than 10,000, have a higher probability of being satisfied.

The coefficients related to the key variables showed that friendship relationships were associated with life satisfaction. In particular, the probability of an individual who meets friends once a week or several times a month being satisfied with life is 9% lower than the same probability for an individual who meets his friends regularly. If the individual meets friends only a few times a year or does not have friends, then the probability of being satisfied decreases nearly 27%. Moreover, if individuals are either quite satisfied or not satisfied with their friendship relationships, then the probability of being satisfied decreases 49 and 69%, respectively, compared to the same probability for individuals satisfied with their friendship relations. We also tested the presence of several interaction effects. First, a synergy effect between the frequency of meeting friends and the friendship satisfaction was checked for. This enabled testing if frequent and satisfactory friendship relations might increase the probability of being satisfied with life. The corresponding parameters turned out to be not significant.

In addition, the interaction between type of municipality and friendship satisfaction and intensity of friendship, respectively, was considered. The motivation relies on the fact that many network studies (e.g., Adams et al. 2012 ), aiming at defining the effect of the geographical space on the configuration of the network, have suggested that smaller areas and proximity facilitate contacts and are contexts where people get to know each other more easily. The analysis indicated that only the interaction between being not satisfied and living in a small area was negative and significant. Since all the other interactions were not significant, and the conclusions for all the other variables did not change when including or excluding interactions, only the more parsimonious models without interactions are reported in the paper.

Concluding remarks

The analysis of social capital focuses on the set of relationships in which individuals are embedded. These relations are resources for the individuals themselves and might have an impact on some aspects of their life, e.g., performance, well-being, and support.

An analysis of a particular facet of social capital, namely the role of friendship relations on the life satisfaction of people aged 18–65, was conducted. Using data from the multipurpose survey “Aspects of daily life,” collected by the Italian National Statistical Institute in 2012, a multilevel logistic model was estimated to study the link between life satisfaction and the frequency of meeting friends, as well as the satisfaction with friendship relationships. This link is considered, by psychological literature, as a bidirectional dynamic process (Demir et al. 2015 ). Having friends and close peer experiences are both important predictors of life satisfaction, and satisfied individuals tend to have stronger and more intimate social relationships.

Although in the current study the target variables follow a partially logical chronological order, the data derives from an observational study, and therefore, no causal relations can be inferred. Consequently, we only focused on the association between life satisfaction and friendship controlling for all other potential confounding variables that we have at disposal. This is a limitation of the study that may only be addressed using longitudinal data.

The results of the analysis showed that less frequent meetings contributed to lower friendship relationship satisfaction, thus leading to lower life satisfaction. These findings were robust to the choice of different thresholds and to a wide set of control variables—with significant associations—pertaining to three main domains that literature has shown to affect life satisfaction.

The current study supports the finding that friends are relevant nodes in a personal network. A high life satisfaction is indeed associated with the presence of friendship. This might be explained by the positive functions attributed to friends. As suggested by previous research, friends provide companionship (in addition to more social trust and less stress), intimacy, and help, which increase an individual’s life satisfaction (see, for example, Demir and Weitekamp 2007 ).

Furthermore, the results indicate that both having/meeting friends and good-quality friendship relations are important to an overall life satisfaction. Individuals may benefit from positive interactions with friends, which are a part of an individual’s social capital. High-quality friendships are more likely to be characterized by support, reciprocity, and intimacy. Conversely, low-quality relations and/or the lack of positive interaction may elicit anxiety.

The importance and the impact of friendship on the life of individuals indicate that it is worthwhile to deepen the topic of friendship relationships and the “contexts in which such relationships are embedded” (Adams and Allan 1998 ). A study of the impact could also be beneficial in population studies. Like all other types of personal relationships, friendships are indeed “constructed-developed, modified, sustained, and ended—by individual acting in contextual setting” (Adams and Allan 1998 , p.3), which is defined by age, gender, stage of life, living arrangement, and experiences lived. These settings might affect the mechanisms of friendship formation and characterization in different ways and, consequently, the measurement of quantitative and qualitative dimensions of friendships.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Editor and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions and necessary amendments on general and technical issues that led to many improvements in this work.

Authors’ contributions

All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

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1 This categorization has been suggested by preliminary analyses which considered all the seven categories and showed not significant differences between categories 1 and 2, between 3 and 4, and across categories 5, 6, and 7.

2 For employed individuals, also their satisfaction with work is considered, distinguishing those very satisfied, those quite satisfied, and those not satisfied; this follows the perspective suggested below to consider also the individuals’ satisfaction with different aspects of their life.

3 As mentioned above, satisfaction with work is embedded in the variable describing employment status (see footnote 2).

4 There might be a reversed relationship between life satisfaction and satisfaction in the different domains of individual’s life. While on the one hand, satisfaction in domains of life might affect life satisfaction; on the other hand, overall life satisfaction might affect individual’s satisfaction. The issue of reverse causality has been discussed in the literature starting from the distinction between top-down and bottom-up theories of well-being by Diener ( 1984 ) and has not yet been settled by the empirical research (see, for example, the discussion in Møller and Saris 2001 ; Rojas 2006 ; González et al. 2010 ). In the current analysis, we aim only at investigating the association between satisfaction in the different domains of individual’s life and life satisfaction. The study of bidirectional causal relation between life satisfaction and friendship relations is beyond the aims of the current paper. In fact, probably with the current data, there is not the problem of reversed relationship between satisfaction in the different domain of individual’s life and life satisfaction; in the questionnaire, indeed, the time reference of the different domains of individual life was the last 12 months, whereas the evaluation of life satisfaction was referred to the “usual” or “normal” behavior of the respondents without a precise time reference, and thus the former aspects are referred to a time that preceded the time reference of life satisfaction.

5 The models were estimated using the procedure GLIMMIX in the program SAS.

Contributor Information

Viviana Amati, Email: [email protected] .

Silvia Meggiolaro, Email: ti.dpinu.tats@gem .

Giulia Rivellini, Phone: +39 02 72343684, Email: [email protected] .

Susanna Zaccarin, Email: [email protected] .

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Simon Alexander Ong

How your circle of friends influence who you become.

For many years, I lived by the belief that how smart and talented I was, would be the single, most important factor in determining my level of success in life.

The grades I thought I had to achieve through sacrificing nights, weekends and holidays for. Having to consistently be regarded as one of the top performers in my class. And, how there had to be mastery of all subjects studied, regardless of interest.

Now, I’m not saying that these accomplishments were of no use at all. In fact, I’m incredibly grateful for all the opportunities and lessons, which I’ve received from the pursuit of academic excellence.

From entering adolescence, to hunting down my first job while at university, it has allowed me to understand that hard work and perseverance are essential ingredients to getting what you want out of life. They are the catalysts that help turn visions into reality.

What hit me over time however, and particularly in the last few years, is the fact that our success in life more often than not comes down to the people we choose to spend our time with.

How smart you are.

How talented you are.

Where you were born.

The family environment you grew up in.

These may all play some role as to how successful you will be in life, but in comparison to the impact of surrounding yourself with people who can lift you higher, it doesn’t compare.

An individual maybe born into riches but live an unhappy life, while someone from more humble beginnings maybe able to manifest their dreams in record breaking time. All because of the company they keep, which influences their way of thinking and thus resulting in a mindset for success.

Our habits determine the person we become. Environment optimisation is an important one that can have a profound impact on your well-being.

Want to be successful? Surround yourself with successful people.

Want to be happy? Surround yourself with happy people.

Want to be healthy? Surround yourself with healthy people.

Want to become more confident? Surround yourself with confident people.

In essence, we become more like the people we hang out with.

It’s like what Jim Rohn tells us: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

Take a moment to reflect on the following: Who are the people you spend most time with? Do they elevate you or bring you down? Are they proactive go-getters exhibiting qualities that you admire or people who just sit and criticise? Do they motivate or drain you?

The awesome thing about being around positive minded individuals, who have a habit of chasing their dreams and believe in taking responsibility for their lives, is that you’ll be inclined to grow in a positive direction as well.

They will have an impact on your thinking and consequently your behaviour. They will support you on your journey and move you towards inspired action.

Maximise the amount of time you spend with these people!

“Associate only with positive, focused people who you can learn from and who will not drain your valuable energy with uninspiring attitudes. By developing relationships with those committed to constant improvement and the pursuit of the best that life has to offer, you will have plenty of company on your path to the top of whatever mountain you seek to climb.” – Robin Sharma

The amazing thing about where we are today in terms of technology, means that you can literally surround yourself with inspiring people (e.g. through Twitter, Facebook and audio books). As a result, I’ve put together a few ideas including these more modern methods, on how you can begin creating a more optimal environment for your personal growth and success:

• Attend events in your local town/city that appeal to your interests, can help you learn something useful, or arouse your curiosity. Make sure to bring your business cards with you!
• Seek out people who have skills/qualities that you admire and learn from them. Never assume that they have nothing to learn from you. We can always learn something from someone, regardless of where they are in their own life.
• Minimise the time you spend hanging out with the wrong crowd and unhealthy influences, e.g. pessimists and those that can hurt your chances of achieving success.
• Read more. Books, blogs, etc. You will be exposed to inspiring success stories, expand your library of knowledge and nurture your creative thinking.
• Listen to audiobooks/podcasts when you are commuting and/or relaxing.
• Follow inspirational people and those who you can learn from on social media channels.
• Subscribe to newsletters, which will add value to your life and help you towards your goals in life.
• Keep perspective. While it’s important to spend your time with those who are more successful than you, it is also great for your development to be around those who are at the same stage as you (so ideas and the journey can be shared) and those below you, who you can inspire and share your wisdom with.
• Spend less time in front of the TV and your smartphone, and more time getting out there and connecting with people. You just never know what it might lead to!

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the above and how you’ve benefited from both the power of relationships and a supportive environment.

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How Does Friends And Peers Influence Your Lifestyle Choices?

Have you ever stopped to think about how much influence your friends and peers have on your lifestyle choices? It’s fascinating to consider just how much our social circles can shape the way we live our lives. From the clothes we wear to the activities we partake in, our friends and peers play a significant role in the decisions we make. So, how exactly does this influence come about? Let’s delve into the world of social influence and explore how our relationships impact our lifestyle choices.

When it comes to lifestyle choices, our friends and peers act as powerful influencers. They can introduce us to new interests, hobbies, and even lifestyles we may have never considered before. Think about it – when a close friend raves about a new workout routine or a trendy fashion style, we are more likely to give it a try ourselves. Our desire to fit in and belong often drives us to adopt similar behaviors and choices as those around us. This phenomenon, known as social conformity, can lead to positive changes in our lives, such as adopting healthier habits or pursuing new passions.

However, it’s important to remember that not all the influences from our friends and peers are necessarily beneficial. Sometimes, we may find ourselves making unhealthy choices or engaging in risky behaviors due to the pressure or influence of our social circles. Peer pressure can be a powerful force, pushing us to conform to behaviors that may not align with our values or goals. It’s crucial to be aware of these influences and make conscious decisions about the choices we make. Ultimately, our friends and peers can be a source of inspiration and support, but it’s up to us to ensure that their influence aligns with our own personal growth and well-being.

In conclusion, the impact of friends and peers on our lifestyle choices is undeniable. From introducing us to new interests and hobbies to pressuring us to conform, our social circles play a significant role in shaping the way we live our lives. It’s essential to be mindful of these influences and make choices that align with our own values and goals. So, next time you find yourself contemplating a lifestyle decision, take a moment to consider how your friends and peers may be influencing your choices. After all, the power of social influence can be both a blessing and a challenge to navigate.

How Does Friends and Peers Influence Your Lifestyle Choices?

Friends and peers have a significant impact on our lives, including the choices we make regarding our lifestyle. From the clothes we wear to the activities we engage in, our friends and peers often influence our decisions and shape our overall lifestyle. This article explores the various ways in which friends and peers can influence our lifestyle choices and provides insights into the importance of surrounding ourselves with positive influences.

The Power of Social Influence

Friends and peers have a powerful influence on our behavior and choices due to the concept of social influence. Social influence refers to the way people modify their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to align with the norms and expectations of a particular group. When we value our relationships with friends and peers, we are more likely to be influenced by their opinions and actions.

One way in which friends and peers influence our lifestyle choices is through the process of social comparison. We tend to compare ourselves to those around us, especially those we hold in high regard. If our friends or peers engage in certain behaviors or adopt a particular lifestyle, we may feel compelled to do the same in order to fit in or gain their approval. This can lead us to make choices that align with the group, even if they may not necessarily be in line with our own values or preferences.

The Role of Peer Pressure

Peer pressure is another aspect of social influence that can significantly impact our lifestyle choices. Peer pressure occurs when our friends or peers encourage or pressure us to engage in certain behaviors or adopt specific habits. This can be both positive and negative. Positive peer pressure can motivate us to engage in healthy activities or make positive changes in our lives, such as exercising regularly or eating a balanced diet.

However, negative peer pressure can lead us astray and influence us to make unhealthy or risky choices. For example, if our friends engage in substance abuse or engage in reckless behavior, we may be more likely to follow suit due to the desire to fit in or fear of social exclusion.

It’s important to recognize the influence of peer pressure and to surround ourselves with friends who support and encourage positive choices. By choosing friends who have similar values and goals, we can create a supportive network that promotes healthy lifestyles.

The Impact on Health and Well-being

The influence of friends and peers on our lifestyle choices extends beyond superficial preferences. It can have a profound impact on our overall health and well-being. For example, if our social circle consists of individuals who prioritize fitness and healthy living, we are more likely to adopt similar habits. Regular exercise, nutritious eating, and self-care activities become the norm within the group, leading to improved physical and mental well-being.

Conversely, if our friends or peers engage in unhealthy behaviors or have poor lifestyle choices, we may find it challenging to break free from those patterns. The habits we develop within our social circle can shape our long-term health outcomes. Therefore, it is crucial to surround ourselves with individuals who inspire and support our journey towards a healthy lifestyle.

The Importance of Positive Influences

Choosing friends and peers who have a positive influence on our lifestyle choices is key to personal growth and well-being. Positive influences can motivate us to set and achieve goals, maintain a healthy work-life balance, and make choices that align with our values and aspirations.

When we surround ourselves with individuals who have similar goals and values, we create an environment that fosters growth and success. Positive influences can provide support, encouragement, and accountability, helping us stay on track and make choices that contribute to our overall happiness and fulfillment.

In conclusion, friends and peers play a significant role in shaping our lifestyle choices. Through social influence and peer pressure, they can impact our decisions and behaviors. It is important to be mindful of the influence our social circle has on us and to choose friends who align with our values and goals. By surrounding ourselves with positive influences, we can create a supportive network that promotes healthy lifestyles and personal growth. So, choose your friends wisely and let their positive influence guide you towards a life of fulfillment and well-being.

Key Takeaways: How Does Friends and Peers Influence Your Lifestyle Choices?

• Your friends and peers can greatly influence the choices you make in your daily life.
• They can influence your preferences for certain activities, hobbies, and interests.
• Friends and peers can also influence your eating habits and the types of food you consume.
• They can impact your exercise habits and motivation to lead a healthy lifestyle.
• Friends and peers can also influence your decisions regarding alcohol, drugs, and other risky behaviors.

Frequently Asked Questions

In this section, we will explore the influence of friends and peers on your lifestyle choices. Understanding how your social circle can impact your decisions can help you make more informed choices that align with your goals and values.

1. How does the behavior of friends and peers affect your lifestyle choices?

Friends and peers can have a significant influence on your lifestyle choices. This is because humans are social creatures who tend to conform to the norms and behaviors of those around them. When your friends engage in certain activities or adopt certain habits, you may feel compelled to do the same in order to fit in or be accepted.

For example, if your friends prioritize physical fitness and engage in regular exercise, you are more likely to be motivated to do the same. On the other hand, if your friends have unhealthy eating habits, you may find it challenging to maintain a healthy diet. It’s important to be mindful of the influence your social circle has on your choices and make conscious decisions that align with your personal goals and values.

2. Can friends and peers influence your attitude towards substance abuse?

Yes, friends and peers can influence your attitude towards substance abuse. If your social circle engages in drug or alcohol use, you may be more inclined to view these behaviors as acceptable or even desirable. Peer pressure can play a significant role in influencing your attitude towards substance abuse.

However, it’s important to remember that you have the power to make your own choices. Developing strong personal values and being aware of the potential consequences of substance abuse can help you resist negative peer influence. Surrounding yourself with friends who support healthy choices and positive behaviors can also help you maintain a substance-free lifestyle.

3. How can friends and peers impact your career choices?

Friends and peers can have a significant impact on your career choices. They may influence your decisions through their own career aspirations, values, and experiences. When your friends pursue certain career paths or demonstrate success in their chosen fields, you may be inspired to follow a similar path.

Conversely, if your friends discourage certain career choices or have negative attitudes towards certain professions, you may be influenced to avoid those paths. It’s important to evaluate your own interests, strengths, and values when making career decisions, rather than solely relying on the opinions and choices of your friends and peers.

4. How can friends and peers influence your health and wellness choices?

Friends and peers can significantly impact your health and wellness choices. If your social circle prioritizes healthy habits such as regular exercise, nutritious eating, and self-care, you are more likely to adopt these behaviors as well. On the other hand, if your friends engage in unhealthy habits or have a sedentary lifestyle, you may find it challenging to prioritize your health.

It’s important to surround yourself with friends who support and encourage your health and wellness goals. Engaging in activities together, such as joining a fitness class or cooking nutritious meals, can create a positive and supportive environment that fosters healthy choices. However, it’s also crucial to maintain your own autonomy and make decisions that align with your individual needs and priorities.

5. Can friends and peers influence your financial decisions?

Yes, friends and peers can influence your financial decisions. The spending habits and financial attitudes of those around you can shape your own attitudes towards money. If your friends have a tendency to engage in impulsive spending or prioritize material possessions, you may be influenced to adopt similar behaviors.

However, it’s important to develop your own financial literacy and make decisions that align with your long-term financial goals. Surrounding yourself with friends who have healthy financial habits and values can provide positive role models and support in making responsible financial choices. Remember, it’s okay to have different priorities and goals when it comes to money, so stay true to yourself and make decisions that align with your own values.

INVISIBLE INFLUENCE: The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior by Jonah Berger

Final Thought: How Friends and Peers Influence Your Lifestyle Choices

In the game of life, our friends and peers can have a significant impact on the lifestyle choices we make. Whether we realize it or not, we are greatly influenced by the company we keep. From our daily habits to our long-term goals, the people we surround ourselves with can shape our attitudes, behaviors, and ultimately, our lives. So, it’s crucial to choose our friends wisely and be aware of the kind of influence they have on us.

One of the ways friends and peers influence our lifestyle choices is through social norms. We tend to conform to the behaviors and expectations of those around us, seeking acceptance and validation within our social circles. If our friends lead healthy and active lives, we are more likely to adopt similar habits. On the other hand, if our peers engage in negative behaviors or have unhealthy habits, we may find ourselves following suit. This phenomenon can be both positive and negative, depending on the values and lifestyles of our friends.

Additionally, our friends and peers can directly impact our motivation and self-belief. When we see others achieving their goals or making positive changes in their lives, it can inspire us to do the same. Surrounding ourselves with ambitious and driven individuals can push us to strive for greatness and pursue our dreams. Conversely, if our friends have a negative mindset or lack motivation, it can hinder our own progress and limit our potential. Therefore, it’s essential to surround ourselves with people who uplift and motivate us to become the best versions of ourselves.

In conclusion, our friends and peers have a powerful influence on our lifestyle choices. They shape our behaviors through social norms and can either inspire us or hold us back. By choosing our company wisely and surrounding ourselves with positive and supportive individuals, we can create a conducive environment for personal growth and success. Remember, the people we choose to spend time with can play a significant role in shaping our lives, so let’s choose wisely.

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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Friendship — The Role of Friendship in My Life

The Role of Friendship in My Life

• Categories: Friendship

About this sample

Words: 697 |

Published: Apr 15, 2020

Words: 697 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Friendship essay outline, friendship essay example, introduction.

• The significance of friendship in life
• Introduction to the best friend, Katy

First Encounter with Katy

• Initial impressions of Katy
• Formation of friendship

Supportive Friendship

• Encouragement and positive outlook during poor test grades
• Reciprocal assistance in academics

Facing Challenges Together

• Approach to final semester tests
• Encountering disappointment and offering support

Strengthening the Friendship

• Mutual determination to improve academically
• Emotional moment of appreciation and unbreakable bond
• Reflection on the importance of friendship
• Treasuring meaningful friendships

Works Cited:

• Faber Taylor, A., & Kuo, F. E. (2009). Children With Attention Deficits Concentrate Better After Walk in the Park. Journal of Attention Disorders, 12(5), 402-409.
• Louv, R. (2008). Last child in the woods: Saving our children from nature-deficit disorder. Algonquin Books.
• Miller, J. R. (2005). Biodiversity conservation and the extinction of experience. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 20(8), 430-434.
• Pergams, O. R., & Zaradic, P. A. (2008). Evidence for a fundamental and pervasive shift away from nature-based recreation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(7), 2295-2300.
• Pretty, J., Peacock, J., Sellens, M., & Griffin, M. (2005). The mental and physical health outcomes of green exercise. International Journal of Environmental Health Research, 15(5), 319-337.
• Roszak, T. (1995). The voice of the earth: An exploration of ecopsychology. Phanes Press.
• Sobel, D. (2008). Childhood and nature: Design principles for educators. Stenhouse Publishers.
• Ulrich, R. S. (1984). View through a window may influence recovery from surgery. Science, 224(4647), 420-421.
• Wells, N. M. (2000). At home with nature: Effects of “greenness” on children's cognitive functioning. Environment and Behavior, 32(6), 775-795.
• Wilson, E. O. (1984). Biophilia. Harvard University Press.

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How Friends Influence One Another–For Better or Worse–in High School

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High school students face many of the same friendship dynamics as elementary and middle school students, yet friendship operates in distinct ways in these later adolescence years. The buffering effect friends provided in earlier childhood, for example, seems to disappear. “Not only did the presence of friends not reduce stress,” writes Lydia Denworth in the 2020 book Friendship : “It made things worse. Cortisol levels went up.” 

By the time students reach high school, friendships become more stable. “In middle school, it’s unusual for an individual to maintain the same group of close friends over the space of 18 months,” says B. Bradford Brown, an educational psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison: “In high school, that is no longer the case.” 

Likely because  individual identities are more solidified , older teens  tolerate greater dissimilarity  in one another. As a result, compromise and collaboration increasingly take the place of conformity.

Like friendship churn, concern over one’s reputation in broader groups peaks in middle school (and early high school). That leaves most high school students relatively less worried about their larger reputation and more focused on the social dynamics within their chosen peer groups, Brown says. It’s a much more adult-like approach. Though we care about being popular our whole lives, many of us begin to focus more on the likeability aspect of popularity than the status side of things as we age, says Mitch Prinstein , a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina and author of Popular . 

A shift in the primacy of romantic partners vis-a-vis friends takes place as well. Over the course of mid-to-late adolescence, romantic partners “increasingly rival and eventually surpass friends in terms of closeness,” says  Brett Laursen , a child psychology professor at Florida Atlantic University. By the tenth grade, teens tend to interact more with romantic partners than anyone else, and research Laursen has been part of shows that as adolescents become involved in romantic relationships, their drinking increasingly mirrors that of their partners rather than their friends.

Peer influence as a positive?

As a predictable corollary, romantic partners begin to exert more influence than friends in high school, and friend groups more than larger crowds.

Most educators know the basics of peer pressure. One famous study showed that the number of one’s friends using drugs is the biggest determinant of drug use. We also know that when peers are present, adolescents take more risks (for example, teenage males drive faster in the presence of other teenage boys). 

But recent research reveals a twist: It’s not necessarily because of any direct egging on. Just presence is enough, because the reward centers of adolescents’ brains are more active with peers than when alone, according to the research of Temple University’s Laurence Steinberg . For her book, Denworth tracked him down as well as Sarah-Jayne Blakemore , a professor of psychology and cognitive neuroscience at University of Cambridge, who explained the academic upside: “Risk taking in an educational context is a vital skill that enables progress and creativity.” 

That’s just one positive lens on peer influence . Scott Gest , a University of Virginia professor, says: “People talk about negative peer influence … but they neglect the pretty substantial literature that shows a lot of negative behavior of high school kids is discouraged by friends. There is a lot of very positive pressure that peers apply, like, ‘No man, that’s stupid.’” This “obstructing” is one of the many underreported modes of peer influence, Brown says. There’s also teasing, reinforcement such as laughing or nodding, and creating situations that facilitate a certain type of behavior, like throwing an unchaperoned party. None of these modes is inherently good or bad, Brown points out. A teen could just as easily create a situation conducive to altruism, like asking a friend to meet them at the food pantry before a concert, knowing full well they’ll end up handing out meals for a few minutes—or cracking a joke about tongue brushing that reinforces oral hygiene.

“Behavioral display,” or modeling that leads to emulation, is another type of peer influence. In one 2018 study of college freshmen, researchers found “having friends with higher propensities to study is predictive of receiving higher freshman grades.” Because the study looked at both assigned roommate pairings and chosen friend groups, the researchers were able to show the effect wasn’t just a reflection of “selection bias,” with studious kids having already chosen to befriend each other. Hanging out with someone studious, they concluded, caused adolescents to study for more hours and post higher grades. The findings confirm previous research showing a correlation between how a child views the importance of doing well in school and how their friends do. 

Similar effects have been demonstrated for volunteer work and health-promotive behaviors, such as exercise, Prinstein says. Positive change has also been documented in high school students dating high-functioning peers.

What does all this mean for educators? Influential students can be explicitly tapped to improve classroom dynamics. In one program , kids were trained to publicly encourage anti-conflict norms. Disciplinary reports of student conflict dropped 30% over one year. This success may be owed in part to the fact that the program enlisted kids’ help. Efforts that engage teens in actual, real-life tasks have been the most promising when it comes to changing the content of the values transmitted within adolescent peer groups. Other successful efforts to “benevolently exploit peer influence,” as Prinstein puts it, include using small group discussions to combat bullying and drinking.

Why meddling can backfire

Ready for another twist? In the anti-conflict norms study, the effect among kids was stronger when the messengers were popular, but were popular for their likeabaility, not status. 

Laursen, who is also editor in chief of the International Journal of Behavioral Development , helps explain why: “Influence within friend pairings is unilateral and unidirectional, flowing to the child who has the potential to have more friends outside the relationship.” That means, “if I’m better liked, and I drink less than you, your rate of increasing drinking is going to slow down,” he says. But it cuts both ways . Delinquency, for example, tends to increase when a less-accepted child befriends someone more delinquent. When it comes to academic improvement, Laursen says, “if it’s the less-liked peer doing better in school, forget about it.”

For this same reason, he says adults must “tread carefully” in trying to manipulate friendships. It’s just very hard from the outside to know what a kid is and isn’t getting from interactions with a peer: “Let’s say you are a parent and you have a child who’s hanging around with somebody you think isn’t the most desirable friend in terms of their attributes. But perhaps in this friendship your child is the one holding all the cards; everybody is trying to be like your child. If you disrupt that friendship, there’s going to be another in its place, and now you may have put your child in a position where they are the susceptible one. You can make them more vulnerable to negative peer influence than they were before.” (Add on top of that research showing that teens who are alienated from their close friends become more aggressive.)

Even greater benefits of cooperation

A cousin of peer influence is collaboration , and high school students get unique benefits from it. Carefully structured cooperative learning experiences have been tied to students exerting greater effort and using higher-level reasoning strategies more frequently, ultimately boosting achievement and decreasing problematic behaviors, according to the research of Michigan State University’s Cary Roseth. What’s more, “in a study of high school seniors,” he reports, “a predisposition to work with peers cooperatively was found to be highly correlated with psychological health.”

The promise of boosted academic and social-emotional learning doesn’t always have to mean group assignments though. Laursen says by high school “many kids hate these sort of paired activities when a grade is riding on the product.” On the other hand, they appreciate the opportunity to work alongside a peer on their own work. Friends are distributed over classes so the bump students see from working with someone they like and trust may be easier to get in a study hall setting where students undertake, in toddler parlance, “parallel play” or “being with.”

Both logistical benefits and moral support can also be fostered in a high school class with no preexisting friendships. One small Australian study of first-year university students showed that when students discussed class content outside of class, they were more likely to progress to second year. Friends provided feedback, reassurance, and encouragement that “increased students’ emotional engagement, their enthusiasm and interest in the course content and in the classroom.” The study’s authors ultimately encouraged teachers to instruct students to talk to each other during breaks, exchange contact information, and consider arranging study sessions.

During distance learning this fall, Mira Debs, executive director of Yale’s education studies program, had students write introductions. She hosted a weekly virtual lunch. One student set up an optional group text message chain for the class. Each of these actions increases a sense of belonging—which in turn boosts motivation —and also provides students with tangible resources. Elizabeth Self , an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University, explains how these college-level findings relate to teens: “If you think about an AP class—high workload, high stress—the way that kids can come together to study, the way they come together to share notes, the way they come together to figure out an assignment …. For those that do, it’s a huge advantage.”

Growing importance of race

“And if you are left out of those groups,” Self continues, “the effect that has for you is not just social but also academic.” She reminds us   that as kids age , they increasingly “ experience the world from a race perspective .” Whether or not they “can be resilient and sustain themselves within systems of oppression in schooling,” she says, “comes down to who their friends are. Do I have a friend that when I feel like a teacher is being racist toward me can affirm that ‘yes, this is happening,’ versus gaslighting me?” Teenagers who have that kind of affirmation “can feel good and whole in the classroom and be successful.” That’s why Beverly Daniel Tatum concludes in Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? that as counterintuitive as it may seem, allowing Black students “the psychological safety of their own group” can actually increase the likelihood that they form friendships outside it, benefitting fully from collaborative opportunities.

Technology a nd distance

With schools across the country closed, child development experts worry most about the future of our youngest learners. After all, high school students already had mechanisms in place for connecting at a distance, practices like exchanging Snapchat videos about the parts of the homework that don’t make sense. 

But Denworth says we can’t discount “Zoom fatigue.” In a recent article for Psychology Today , she describes a book called Relating Through Technology by Jeffrey Hall, a professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas. He told Denworth, “Compared to face to face, texting and using social media, energy use during a Zoom call is higher.” Disruptions like your own image, delays, and cross-talk make video calls more intense. They also heighten loneliness: “Zoom is exhausting and lonely because you have to be so much more attentive and so much more aware of what’s going on than you do on phone calls.”

And even though teens can socialize virtually, Brown says, “the intensity of seeing close friends and romantic partners in person is difficult to give up, so the lack of those face-to-face opportunities is going to create anxiety.” Their developmentally appropriate craving for intimacy is what drives “the way that individuals 18 to 25 are behaving right now,” he says, “having real difficulty engaging in social distancing, wearing a face covering, and staying feet apart.” 

While distance learning may work best for teenagers , everything we know about friendship in late adolescence suggests they too would benefit from in-person learning experiences at the earliest safe opportunity.

This article is part of the “ Friendship in Schools ” series, which explores the complexities of friendship at various stages of learning.

Gail Cornwall  works as a mother and writer in San Francisco.

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Friendship Day: Ways how friends influence your life and how to nourish your friendships

Updated Aug 7, 2022, 14:22 IST

If your social network is healthy, you tend to live a more healthy and long life. An 80-year-long Harvard study suggests that your close relationships are what can keep you happy and healthy.

• Your friends will affect the way you perceive yourself. When you have friends who speak of your positively, you are more likely to think good about yourself and that will have a positive effect on your mind. Similarly, friends who speak badly about you will make you feel inferior and also have a negative impact on your mind.
• Your friends also have an influence on your lifestyle. Friends can also have an impact on the way you dress or eat or the type of music that you listen to. Friends also have an influence on the way you tend to spend your money. If they spend money on irrelevant stuff, you too might tend to spend money the same way.
• Your friends also help influence your social network. And if your social network is healthy, you tend to live a more healthy and long life. An 80-year-long Harvard study suggests that your close relationships are what can keep you happy and healthy.
• Always be kind to your friends.
• Be a good listener to your friends.
• Talk to your friends often.
• Make time for your friends.
• Show your friends that they can trust you.

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Essay on Importance of Friends in our Life for Students

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Essay on Importance of Friends: It is rightly said, “Friends are the family we choose ourselves”. It is as important to have friends as it is to have a family. Good friends help, guide and support us at every stage.

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Friends give us emotional support, they help us during difficult times and make us feel special. Blessed are those who have true friends in life. Here are some essays on Importance of Friends in our Life of varying lengths. You can choose any Importance of Friends in our Life essay as per the need.

Long and Short Essay on Importance of Friends in our Life in English

We have provided below short and long essay on importance of friends in our life in English. The essays have been listen in simple English language for your information so that you can easily remember them and present them when needed.

After reading the essays you will know what the importance of friends in our life is, how friends help us in studies and also in other matters, what qualities do good friends share etc.

You can use these essays in your school assignments wherein you are expected to write an essay or take part in discussion over importance of friends in life.

Essay on Importance of Friends in our Life 200 words

Friends are extremely important for everyone. Whether it is a toddler, a teenager, a middle aged person or an old person – everyone needs good friends around to live life to the fullest.

During childhood, friendship helps in making us understand and develop the habit of sharing and caring. Small kids develop friendship faster and enjoy the company of their friends. They play and learn together. Friends are important for their proper growth and development. As teenagers, friends become all the more important for us. We go through numerous emotional, physical and mental changes during our teenage. Many of the problems faced during this age cannot be discussed with our parents and other family members. However, we are quite comfortable sharing these with our friends. Having good friends who can listen to our issues and provide us support and guidance are indeed a blessing during this age.

We have all heard about mid-life crisis. More and more people these days are suffering from this problem. Their family, job, kids and almost everyone and everything around begins to appear as a burden to them at this age. Having good friends around at this time can help in bringing about positivity amid this emotional upheaval. Friends are equally important during old age. With the growing nuclear family system couples are left alone during their old age. If they have friends around, their life remains joyful and interesting instead of becoming dull.

Friends form an essential part of our lives. Life becomes more enjoyable and bearable when we have good friends around. Even one real friend can bring about a positive change in our life. Here is why friends are important:

True friends are extremely supportive of each other. They support one another at various levels. They help in bringing out the best in each other by extending help when it comes to studies and other activities. My friends are always ready to share their notes with me whenever I miss out any class. This is a great help for me. They also act as an emotional support. Whenever I am down emotionally, I turn to my best friend. She knows how to calm me and support me at such a time.

Good friends are also our best guides. They are there to guide us at every step. Whenever I need advice regarding handling my relationships, managing my studies or participating in other activities my friends are there to guide me. They are also there to guide me whenever I break down emotionally. They help me look at the positives in life and shun the negativity.

There is no denying the fact that having friends makes life more fun and enjoyable. Being around friends is extremely fun and exciting. I love going out on trips with friends. While I enjoy family trips too however the enjoyment on trips planned with friends is simply unmatched. Partying with friends, gossiping with them for hours, going for shopping and movies with them and indulging in crazy activities that only your group can understand is all extremely fun.

I am lucky to have a crazy bunch of friends whose level of craziness matches mine all the way. They make my life amazing and so full of life.

Essay on Importance of Friends in our Life 400 words

Friendship is known to be the most beautiful relationship in the world. We choose our friends on our own unlike our family members and relatives who form a part of our lives whether or not we want them to. A person who has a bunch of good friends around is happier than those who don’t.

Friends Extend Emotional Support

If you have even one good friend in life, you will know what I mean. Among other things, I cherish my friends for extending emotional support. There are numerous instances in life when we get emotional and just want to talk our heart out to somebody. There are many things that we cannot share with our parents and siblings for the fear of hurting them or invoking their anger. This is when we can turn to our friends. Good friends are always there to listen to you endlessly. They are there for you during your difficult times when you have an emotional outburst. Sometimes, all we need is someone who can listen to us without passing any judgement and forming any opinions about us. This type of comfort level is only found in friends. They listen to us and help us get over that emotional phase.

I remember the times when I have an argument with my mother or sister or get a scolding from my father or teacher for some reason, it becomes very difficult for me to concentrate on my studies until the things resolve. All I keep thinking about is that I should not have said or done things that led to such a situation. I almost break emotionally and go on a guilt trip. These are the times when I need my friends the most. I turn to them for advice to get things sorted. At times, their advice works at times it doesn’t. However, just venting out my feelings in front of them can make me feel much better. I know that I have someone whom I can fall back on whenever I am faced with an emotional situation. They may or may not be able to alter the situation however at least they help me overcome that guilty feeling by reminding me that I am just a human being and that I do not have to be too harsh on myself.

I am lucky I have some really amazing friends around. They are my pillar of strength and as important to me as my family. Without them my life would have been extremely dull.

Essay on Importance of Friends in our Life 500 words

It is rightly said, “True friendship multiplies the good in life and divides its evils. Strive to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a desert island”. Friendship is indeed very important in our lives. True friends are blessings from God. They make our life worth living.

Importance of Friends for Toddlers

It has been observed that when there are two children of the same age group in a house, they grow and develop faster at various levels as compared to single child in a family. This is because they share similar interests, indulge in similar activities, play, enjoy and learn from each other. However, unfortunately, in today’s time, most families have single child. Most kids are left alone with maids or with their mother who are already loaded with numerous other responsibilities that they are unable to give enough attention to their kids. This hampers their physical as well as mental growth. While the nuclear family system has become the need of the hour, we can ensure proper growth of the toddlers by helping them build friendships. Parents must take their toddlers to parks where they can find kids of the same age. Being around kids of their own age is a delightful experience for them. They play, learn and grow the right way when they are surrounded with friends.

This is also one of the main reasons for the establishment of so many play schools these days. Kids who are sent to play schools learn to share and care and grow better. They are better prepared to take on the regular school as compared to those who do not attend play school.

Importance of Friends during Old Age

Earlier there was joint family system. People lived with their extended families and rejoiced every occasion with them. They helped and supported each other with various tasks. Friends were still important and their presence added to the overall mood of every occasion. Besides, there are always numerous things that one cannot share with his/her family member but can easily share with friends. However, the growing nuclear family system has made people realise the importance of friends all the more. Not just the young couples and kids, the old men and women also feel the need to have a good friends circle. Old people these days left alone as their children move out for professional and personal reasons. Those who have a good friends circle can survive well even after their children get busy with their lives on the other hand those who do not have friends often feel lonely and get into depression or incur other such illnesses.

So, people belonging to the older generation, these days, seriously need some good friends. Many clubs and societies have formed to help old people bond with each other.

While friends are extremely important for kids in their growing age as well as for the older generation, people from other age groups also need the gift of friendship as much. Friends teach us a lot in life and make us stronger. They are as important as our family.

Also Check: My Best Friend Paragraph

Essay on Importance of Friends in our Life 600 words

Friends make our lives special. If you do not have friends then you merely exist, you don’t live in the true sense. The importance of friendship has emphasized time and again and the concept not overrated.

Why Having Friends at work is Important?

There is a lot of competition in corporate offices these days. People need to work for long hours, go to work on the weekends and even require going on official tours regularly. There is a lot of work pressure and life can become extremely stressful in such a situation. However, not when there are friends at work. When you find friends in your colleagues, your workplace becomes an interesting place and you look forward to go to your office. You know that there are people around who are going through the same amount of work pressure and stress. Conversing with them, venting out your feelings about work environment and taking and giving them tips on how to handle work pressure can make you feel much better.

You need emotional support when your boss shouts at you for some reason or doesn’t grant you leave or sets unrealistic targets for you. Having friends at office can help in lowering stress caused due to such reasons as they understand your situation best. Office then doesn’t just remains a place to immerse yourself in work or take instructions from your boss it becomes livelier. It has seen that those who have friends at office tend to stick to the organization for long and take fewer leaves.

However, in the corporate world people often make friends with selfish motifs. So, before sharing any important information or getting emotionally attached with your colleagues turned friends you must ensure that they genuinely interested in your friendship and not because being with you benefits them in some way.

Friends Help in Enhancing our Personality

Imagine what kind of a person you will become if your life only involves going to the school and coming back home, if all you do at school is study and stay confined to your home with minimum interaction with the outside world? Your life will become extremely dull and boring. Many people these days lead such a life as they grow old. This is especially so with the housewives who stay confined to their homes most of the times and do not make friendships outside. This way they lose confidence. They become socially awkward and eventually do not like going out and mingling with people even when they get a chance. Many of them even get into depression. Having friends makes life worth living. They also help in enhancing our personality. People who surrounded by friends are emotionally strong. They are also more confident as compared to those who do not have strong friendships. This is because they have people around to discuss issues, vent out their feelings, seek advice and go out.

Hostel Life considered the Best

Hostel life considered to the best time in a person’s life and this is mainly because they surrounded by friends during this time. Friends can extremely fun to be around. This is the reason why a place where we away from family, all on our own can also appear good. The importance of friends can felt at this time and having good friends around can blessing. Most of the friendship bonds formed in hostels last a lifetime. Friends are there to provide emotional support to each other. They cheer us up when we feel low, help us with the studies, travel for kilometers with us for shopping and indulge in various fun activities.

Also Check: Paragraph on Friendship

Friends are an essential part of our lives. They add vibrancy to our lives. Without friends life can be quite dull and boring.

Essay on Importance of Friends FAQs

Why do we need friends for class 4.

Friends help us learn, grow, and share our feelings. They make school and life more enjoyable and less lonely.

Why friends are important for Class 3?

Friends make us smile, help us learn, and are there when we need them. They make our days brighter and full of fun.

What is most important in a friendship?

Trust, kindness, and understanding are essential in a friendship, creating a strong bond based on respect and support.

What is a friend short essay?

A friend is someone who cares, listens, and stands by you through good and bad times, making life more beautiful and enjoyable.

Why are friends important in our life for kids?

Friends make life fun and help kids learn about sharing, caring, and teamwork, while also providing comfort and friendship.

How do I write an essay about a friend?

Start with an introduction, share stories or experiences, and highlight your friend's qualities that make them special to you.

What is the importance of friends?

Friends offer companionship, understanding, and encouragement, enhancing our emotional well-being and providing a strong support system.

What is the importance of friends in our life essay?

Friends bring joy, support, and a sense of belonging, making life happier and less lonely. They help us grow, learn, and face challenges together.

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April 2, 2024

Eclipse Psychology: When the Sun and Moon Align, So Do We

How a total solar eclipse creates connection, unity and caring among the people watching

By Katie Weeman

Students observing a partial solar eclipse on June 21, 2020, in Lhokseumawe, Aceh Province, Indonesia.

NurPhoto/Getty Images

This article is part of a special report on the total solar eclipse that will be visible from parts of the U.S., Mexico and Canada on April 8, 2024.

It was 11:45 A.M. on August 21, 2017. I was in a grassy field in Glendo, Wyo., where I was surrounded by strangers turned friends, more than I could count—and far more people than had ever flocked to this town, population 210 or so. Golden sunlight blanketed thousands of cars parked in haphazard rows all over the rolling hills. The shadows were quickly growing longer, the air was still, and all of our faces pointed to the sky. As the moon progressively covered the sun, the light melted away, the sky blackened, and the temperature dropped. At the moment of totality, when the moon completely covered the sun , some people around me suddenly gasped. Some cheered; some cried; others laughed in disbelief.

Exactly 53 minutes later, in a downtown park in Greenville, S.C., the person who edited this story and the many individuals around him reacted in exactly the same ways.

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When a total solar eclipse descends—as one will across Mexico, the U.S. and Canada on April 8—everyone and everything in the path of totality are engulfed by deep shadow. Unlike the New Year’s Eve countdown that lurches across the globe one blocky time zone after another, the shadow of totality is a dark spot on Earth that measures about 100 miles wide and cruises steadily along a path, covering several thousand miles in four to five hours. The human experiences along that path are not isolated events any more than individual dominoes are isolated pillars in a formation. Once that first domino is tipped, we are all linked into something bigger—and unstoppable. We all experience the momentum and the awe together.

When this phenomenon progresses from Mexico through Texas, the Great Lakes and Canada on April 8, many observers will describe the event as life-changing, well beyond expectations. “You feel a sense of wrongness in those moments before totality , when your surroundings change so rapidly,” says Kate Russo, an author, psychologist and eclipse chaser. “Our initial response is to ask ourselves, ‘Is this an opportunity or a threat?’ When the light changes and the temperature drops, that triggers primal fear. When we have that threat response, our whole body is tuned in to taking in as much information as possible.”

Russo, who has witnessed 13 total eclipses and counting, has interviewed eclipse viewers from around the world. She continues to notice the same emotions felt by all. They begin with that sense of wrongness and primal fear as totality approaches. When totality starts, we feel powerful awe and connection to the world around us. A sense of euphoria develops as we continue watching, and when it’s over, we have a strong desire to seek out the next eclipse.

“The awe we feel during a total eclipse makes us think outside our sense of self. It makes you more attuned to things outside of you,” says Sean Goldy, a postdoctoral fellow at the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University.

Goldy and his team analyzed Twitter data from nearly 2.9 million people during the 2017 total solar eclipse. They found that people within the path of totality were more likely to use not only language that expressed awe but also language that conveyed being unified and affiliated with others. That meant using more “we” words (“us” instead of “me”) and more humble words (“maybe” instead of “always”).

“During an eclipse, people have a broader, more collective focus,” Goldy says. “We also found that the more people expressed awe, the more likely they were to use those ‘we’ words, indicating that people who experience this emotion feel more connected with others.”

This connectivity ties into a sociological concept known as “collective effervescence,” Russo and Goldy say. When groups of humans come together over a shared experience, the energy is greater than the sum of its parts. If you’ve ever been to a large concert or sporting event, you’ve felt the electricity generated by a hive of humans. It magnifies our emotions.

I felt exactly that unified feeling in the open field in Glendo, as if thousands of us were breathing as one. But that’s not the only way people can experience a total eclipse.

During the 2008 total eclipse in Mongolia “I was up on a peak,” Russo recounts. “I was with only my husband and a close friend. We had left the rest of our 25-person tour group at the bottom of the hill. From that vantage point, when the shadow came sweeping in, there was not one man-made thing I could see: no power lines, no buildings or structures. Nothing tethered me to time: It could have been thousands of years ago or long into the future. In that moment, it was as if time didn’t exist.”

Giving us the ability to unhitch ourselves from time—to stop dwelling on time is a unique superpower of a total eclipse. In Russo’s work as a clinical psychologist, she notices patterns in our modern-day mentality. “People with anxiety tend to spend a lot of time in the future. And people with depression spend a lot of time in the past,” she says. An eclipse, time and time again, has the ability to snap us back into the present, at least for a few minutes. “And when you’re less anxious and worried, it opens you up to be more attuned to other people, feel more connected, care for others and be more compassionate,” Goldy says.

Russo, who founded Being in the Shadow , an organization that provides information about total solar eclipses and organizes eclipse events around the world, has experienced this firsthand. Venue managers regularly tell her that eclipse crowds are among the most polite and humble: they follow the rules; they pick up their garbage—they care.

Eclipses remind us that we are part of something bigger, that we are connected with something vast. In the hours before and after totality you have to wear protective glasses to look at the sun, to prevent damage to your eyes. But during the brief time when the moon blocks the last of the sun’s rays, you can finally lower your glasses and look directly at the eclipse. It’s like making eye contact with the universe.

“In my practice, usually if someone says, ‘I feel insignificant,’ that’s a negative thing. But the meaning shifts during an eclipse,” Russo says. To feel insignificant in the moon’s shadow instead means that your sense of self shrinks, that your ego shrinks, she says.

The scale of our “big picture” often changes after witnessing the awe of totality, too. “When you zoom out—really zoom out—it blows away our differences,” Goldy says. When you sit in the shadow of a celestial rock blocking the light of a star 400 times its size that burns at 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit on its surface, suddenly that argument with your partner, that bill sitting on your counter or even the differences among people’s beliefs, origins or politics feel insignificant. When we shift our perspective, connection becomes boundless.

You don’t need to wait for the next eclipse to feel this way. As we travel through life, we lose our relationship with everyday awe. Remember what that feels like? It’s the way a dog looks at a treat or the way my toddler points to the “blue sky!” outside his car window in the middle of rush hour traffic. To find awe, we have to surrender our full attention to the beauty around us. During an eclipse, that comes easily. In everyday life, we may need to be more intentional.

“Totality kick-starts our ability to experience wonder,” Russo says. And with that kick start, maybe we can all use our wonderment faculties more—whether that means pausing for a moment during a morning walk, a hug or a random sunset on a Tuesday. In the continental U.S., we won’t experience another total eclipse until 2044. Let’s not wait until then to seek awe and connection.