Two ideas from two books. The first: “I have like two or three people in my life that I don’t feel like friends, they are an extension of me, you know? It’s a different thing. They are part of my family.” This is said by Pedro —false name—, an 18-year-old from Cordoba, in the studio Youth and friendship from the FAD Juventud Reina Sofía center. And another: “Friendship is the most necessary thing for life,” Aristotle defends in the Nicomachean Ethics. The philosopher said that having friends is essential to being happy. Is it worth overcoming goals if you don’t have anyone to tell about it to?
More than 2,300 years have passed between Aristotle and Peter and some things have changed. We do not relate to each other in the same way as in the year 24, or in 1024, or even in the same way as in 2004. We live in increasingly atomised and individualistic societies. Long working hours, the transfer of leisure from the physical to the digital world and other changes in lifestyle have heightened the feeling of loneliness. This is why 20% of adults feel lonely in Spain. And the highest peak is seen in young people: one in three between 18 and 24 years old feels isolated, according to a study by the ONCE and AXA foundations. “It is thought that they feel more accompanied, but it does not have to be that way. Because of digitalisation they can have more contacts, but not more ties,” says Miriam González, a social-health psychologist in the Community of Madrid. And loneliness does not have to be bad. This is how Sol García, from Implica Psicología, specialised in youth issues, sees it: “There are many changes at that age. This can bring with it new feelings of loneliness, but it doesn’t have to be negative. Loneliness well navigated can be enriching.” And she justifies: “The way of life today makes people feel more alone. If my life is based on working from nine to nine, where is my community?”
There is a prejudice that today’s relationships are more superficial and less intimate, “but that’s not the case at all,” says Anna Sanmartín, coordinator of the FAD Juventud Reina Sofía study, a field study on how young people value friendship today. Conclusion: a bit like before. Loyalty, sincerity, empathy, respect and feeling listened to are still key values. “That they take an interest in me, you know? That I feel that I’m important to them, that they love me,” says María, a 16-year-old girl, for the study. Again, Aristotle: “Friendship consists more of loving than being loved.”
But young people have been living in the digital environment since they were born. It has its positive aspects, such as contacting distant friends or helping to break the ice with the more shy ones. “But there is also a negative aspect: they tell us that sometimes they feel overwhelmed by always having to respond to their friends in their online life,” explains Sanmartín. “Sometimes new problems arise with social networks, such as when someone doesn’t upload a story for your birthday or you see that they are on a plan that you weren’t invited to. You have to know how to deal with those moments and communicate assertively,” explains Sol García. However, they still prefer being in person. “With my friends we only talk to each other to pass on news, nonsense, stickers and that’s it. Then, for important things, no. I prefer to talk over a coffee,” explains Elvira, 22 years old.
Another change: according to a study by the PIR Centerpolitical ideas are more important, to have a friendship it is necessary to share issues that define a vision of the world and of life, such as principles, values or ideology.
New relationships are considered more emotional than previous ones. “They talk about the importance of emotional education in the face of the loss of friendship. They look for tools and also, although there is still progress to be made, they talk more and more about their feelings among themselves,” explains Sanmartín. “They are more capable of talking about their emotions and expressing them than their parents. Their parents were the first to have this awareness of emotional expression. Children have been allowed more and they are seen to be more evolved,” explains Miriam González.
The gender perspective is a crucial point. “They are beginning to question what it means to be a boy and what it means to be a girl. We see smaller, more mixed and varied groups than 20 years ago,” Sanmartín points out. Despite the idea that many young men are anti-feminist, the results of the study are not so in agreement: “We see a majority of young people who are feminists and who advocate for equality.” Those who have become radicalized, says the coordinator, “are a minority towards denialism, but they make a lot of noise and they are increasing in number.”
According to a study by Bumble and Ipsos Digital, more than a third of Spaniards (35%) believe they do not have enough friends. The psychologists consulted emphasize that as we get older, friendships decrease and it is increasingly difficult to make new ones. However, we also live in a time when people cut off their friends more and more quickly if they do not satisfy them. “If a person has to disappear, then they disappear, and if they have to come back, they should come back,” says a young woman in the FAD study.
We all want to know ourselves a little better. Friends fulfill that function. They are not random people we meet, but people who play a necessary role in the course of our existence. It is our friendships who give us that degree of intimacy necessary to find something deep and lasting about ourselves. The attachment that is criticized for having an idyllic independence is something “unreal” for Miriam González: “Attachment is necessary, from the biological point of view, if a baby does not attach to its mother it dies. One cannot heal and evolve in everything alone, we need the community.” And she emphasizes that we are “co-interdependent” on each other. As Aristotle said: “There is friendship when sympathy is reciprocal.”
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