Well, for those who can’t stop wondering, Snapchat’s newly released Friendship Report provides all the answers you’ve ever had about best friends. They surveyed a diverse group of 10,000 participants from countries all around the world, including the United States, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and others, about what their friendships look like. As for regular friends, globally the average number of people was about seven, and when it came to acquaintances, the average number globally shot up to 20. People like “Instagram friends” may fall under the acquaintances bracket. Personality-wise, the most important qualities people look for in a friend are honesty and authenticity. There were some interesting location-specific preferences as well though: For example, people in India, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia valued friends who are “intelligent and cultured,” whereas Americans cared more about finding friends who are “non-judgmental.” For Gen Z Americans in particular cared about having connections that are diverse, with 24% of them reporting a want for more diverse friendships. Yet, trends show that the dynamic of male friendships has significantly changed in recent years as men have become more open to expressing their feelings and thoughts. When men and women were asked what activities they most frequently do with their friends, “sit and talk” was the most popular for both genders, at 65% of women and 57% of men. Communication is the common glue of friendships, even when you’re not together, as talking on the phone was the second most common friendship activity, with 58% of women and 51% of men picking it. “We tend to think of women’s friendships as being much more intimate than men’s, and there are certainly some meaningful differences,” therapist and friendship researcher Miriam Kirmayer told Snapchat. “One of the shifts we are seeing is that men are becoming more aware of, and comfortable with, their need for social connection and intimacy within their friendships. In many cases, it is also increasingly common for men to seek out emotional and physical closeness in their platonic friendships.” Everyone wants close friends they can talk to, after all. And by the way, 33% of Americans said their best friend was of the “opposite” gender. Gen Z was actually even more private: 27% don’t discuss their relationship issues with friends, 21% don’t talk about their love life at all, and 23% keep their mental health to themselves. Though millennials and Gen Z individuals were both raised in the digital age, their comfort levels for discussing things with friends are quite different. “What you have to understand is that millennials are the Facebook and MySpace generation. Their connection to the emergence of social media was with those platforms, and those platforms are all about networks,” Chloe Combi, journalist and author of Generation Z: Their Voices, Their Lives, told Snapchat. “It was exhilarating for them to be able to spread out far and connect with this vast network of people via their immediate circle.” As for Gen Z, she said, “If you think about Snapchat or TikTok, they’re not about a vast network; they’re more about you and what you want to focus on.” Brought up on social media, young people today are at ease with making and connecting with friends through a screen. An open generation, they share their lives with friends and followers while keeping a small group of people close. With so many ways to interact, millennials have found a way to balance in-person and virtual methods of support and love in their friendships.
