This is the conclusion of an American study published in March in Psychology and Aging (American scientific journal). A hundred people studying at the University of Rochester in the 1970s were questioned at several stages of their lives:at 20, 30 and 50 years old.
Each time, they were asked to count their number of daily interactions and to note them (degree of intimacy, possibly the inconvenience this caused them). At 50, they also answered questions about their psychological well-being (including their state of loneliness, depression, the quality of their friendships, etc.).
Their results confirm that the quantity (but not the quality) of social interactions at age 20 and the quality (but not the quantity) of interactions at age 30 predict our psychosocial state at age 50.
At 20, we are hungry for the world, we multiply friendships, meetings, interactions. But after 30 years, it's the quality that counts. We have new goals, cut bridges, our relationships would become fewer but deeper.
Meeting lots of people in your twenties can benefit you in your 50s. On the other hand, if, after 30, you still have a lot of shallow social interactions, you risk paying for it later. The study reveals that people who did not have deep relationships after 30 years were lonelier, sadder, felt worse.
It is true that the sample of this study was limited, only the data of a hundred students from the 1970s were collected. But with the advent of social networks and the proliferation of "friends", is there a change in the perception of friendship and especially in the depth of the friendships that we bond? Another American study, this time conducted on 25,000 people, concluded that no.
