People Ditch Half Their Friends Every Seven Years
People upgrade their social networks in regular periods
By DANIEL MACHT
Updated 10:37 AM EST, Wed, Jun 3, 2009
You'll always get by with a little help from your friends -- but chances are, your current entourage won't be there for you down the road.
People replace half their social network every seven years, researchers at Uterecht University in the Netherlands found in a new study. As a result, the size of one's social network doesn't change much, LiveScience reported.
That finding goes against previous research that suggested social networks shrink over time, proving that people don't cut out their friends -- they trade up.
Researchers asked 1,007 people aged 18 to 65 questions like: "Who do you talk with regarding personal issues" and "Where did you get to know that person?" They then reconnected with 604 of the subjects seven years later to ask the same questions.
What they found was that people only confided with 30 percent of their former bffs, and only hung out with 48 percent of old friends.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst concluded that friend choices are determined by the context of where we meet them.
First Published: Jun 2, 2009 3:20 PM EST
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