Anyone who spends time on Facebook has friends.
And many people have lots of friends on the social media site. And anyone on some other social media sites, have contacts they may call friends too.
A new study suggests that all the many friends on social media may not make us feel as satisfied as we might think they do.
This new study found that while some “previous research has suggested that having numerous friends reduces the risk of medical conditions like heart disease…not all friendships are created equal.”
Bottom line:The study found that that a person’s well-being was more closely related to how people feel about their friends than their overall number of friends.
And the study found that while older adults may have generally fewer friends than younger adults with more social media friends, older adults tend to be closer with those friends and interact with them on a face-to-face basis more frequently.
As one of the researchers put it, “Loneliness has less to do with the number of friends you have, and more to do with how you feel about your friends.”
The study suggesting that if you feel lonely, it may be more helpful to make a positive connection with a friend than to try and seek out new people to meet.
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