It is said who has a friend, has a treasure. A treasure that can be difficult to find. Melissa Meizz is a 23-year-old girl who counted to The New York Times how he realized that his friends were making him void. In a TikTok video they commented that they were planning a party without her and a group of users contacted her to tell her. From that disgust the community created by Meizz was born to bring together people who may feel alone because they have not found a group of friends. It’s not new that social media is an important tool for socializing. But if TikTok has gone conquering more and more aspects of the lives of millions of people, especially teenagers; social skills and new friends could not be less. First of all for people who wonder how to make friends.
TikTok gave Melissa Meizz the opportunity to meet people with whom she did feel supported and loved. After being told about the video in which her friends excluded her, she began receiving thousands of messages from other people who wanted to help her. They began to invite her to plans with friends so that she would not feel alone. Melissa saw there the opportunity that the pandemic has also caused, that hunger to meet people after months of restrictions and to focus on making friends.
In June, he posted a video on TikTok in which he summoned all those who wanted to make new friends in Central Park in New York. More than 200 people showed up. These were the beginnings of No More Lonely Friends, an online community created by Meizz.
How to make friends, it depends on how old you are
From a bad experience came the opportunity to create a community to meet people. If that is not an easy task in itself, the pandemic has made making new friends even more difficult. Before, an internet forum on a specific topic could be the perfect way to meet like-minded people, now TikTok and Instagram have arrived to do the same. Eva G, 17, explained to Hypertextual that Instagram is already a platform to meet people. Especially friends of friends. “Someone speaks to you directly privately, you see that a friend of yours follows him and it is good because you can ask him about that person to find out more about him,” Eva explained to Hypertextual.
Not all generations use it in the same way. While adolescents and young people see Instagram as a way to make friends and even flirt -We have passed the ‘can you give me your number?’ to ‘can you give me your Instagram?’ – the millennial generation does not see the same potential of the platform to make new friends. “I think we are more reluctant to meet people on Instagram, we use it more as a showcase for our daily life but not so much to look for friends,” said Luís, 33 years old.
TikTok is the queen of inclusion
On TikTok, on the other hand, personal interests play a more important role. “Depending on the content you upload, people feel identified with you and so you can start making friends. If you don’t fit in with anyone in this social network you find people “, said Eva G.
TikTok has established the reign of short videos over written texts. And it is in these videos where viral dances prevail, but also advice, routines and a wide range of themes. César González-Blanch, clinical psychologist, pointed out that social networks allow you to find like-minded people, “especially if your tastes differ from those that predominate in your most immediate social group”.
They also allow, he added, “to present the aspects with which you feel most comfortable, more secure, which can facilitate contact with others.” In this sense, and in accordance with what Eva G pointed out, the platform allows many to find a environment in which to feel included.
Although not at any price. Although the arrival of the internet helped many people to know how to make friends through the different platforms and social networks that we have used for years, our way of relating to each other has also changed. For teenagers, this change has practically come standard. “One of the problems with social networks is that they are designed to be used the more the better. That certainly can reduce the possibility and the need for face-to-face contacts, which require different approach strategies and can be less varied, changeable, less stimulating, “González-Blanch said.
If the ability to relate physically is lost, it can also be a factor that in the future can cause make relationships difficult and dare to meet new people. An aspect that adds to other risks, especially for adolescents.
“In addition, we know that the use of social networks has some risks, such as, for example, that problems with body image can be created by comparing manipulated or selected images of others. Or, in general, by comparing our routines daily with the most attractive and flattering moments in the lives of others, which is what is disseminated on social networks. This can have negative emotional consequences. ”
Cesar Gonzalez-Blanch
Anonymity vs. how to make friends
As pointed out by the social media expert María García-Quintana in an article prior to Hypertextual, social networks are not bad, but it can be the use that we make of them. In this case, this “bad” use can cause you to have superficial relationships, based only on the reality that is taught in social networks. Also bad experiences related to bullying. Melissa Meizz was very lucky to find people who supported her when she felt left out of her group of friends. Did not count The New York Times no bad experience in your process of knowing how to make friends. No hate messages, no mockery for their situation. Like in real life, however, no one is exempt.
The psychologist César González-Blanch said that networks are designed to reach the greatest number of people, quickly and with information that in many cases may be out of context or that offers personal content. “All this also means that hatred can multiply and spread more easily than in real life. Anonymity favors it. To top it off, the digital footprint of social networks makes it last longer than in real life,” he told Hypertextual.
One of the members of the community created by Melissa Meizz confirmed that social networks can be a very harmful place. But also the place where the opposite can be found, as in the case of No More Lonely Friends, which “brings together people who are in the same boat, who seek to know how to make friends and yearn for human interaction. ”
When loneliness knocked on our doors
An interaction that has been longed for more than ever in the last year. The coronavirus pandemic has made it nearly impossible to meet new people in the traditional way. The only way has been through social networks. Although the pandemic has been only the drop of a glass that was already about to be filled. When it comes to dating apps, Tinder already had millions of users before the coronavirus hit. Bumble too, although during lockdown he enabled the Bumble BFF tool focused on making friends beyond dating.
Although there is life beyond TikTok, Instagram and Tinder. Even applications to rent friends. It is the case of Alquifriend, a platform to rent friends “To attend a social event, accompany you to a wedding or escort you to a party. Hire someone to introduce you to new people, or someone to go to the movies or a restaurant with. Hire a friend to show you a new city, teach you a new skill / hobby, or just someone to keep you company, “they explain on the website.
Loneliness has always been there, what we lacked was confinement due to the coronavirus pandemic. Ignasi Puig Rodas, a psychologist, sexologist and couples therapist, indicated that there is no doubt that social networks have facilitated contact with people. But that contact can be superficial in some ways and, for example, many people around you may not realize that you have disappeared due to a crisis. “There are so many people in networks that it can be difficult to perceive that that person has left, unless it is a friend who is very attentive.”
Video calls with friends as a weekend plan also helped many people but we must not forget that this situation has been circumstantial. This was the opinion of Elena Herráez, coordinator of the COVID Psychological Care Service of the Community of Madrid. “Most of us understood that this was something temporary. (…) Social networks covered the need for contact but most, when we had the opportunity, we have once again reinforced social relationships within what they allowed us sanitary measures, “he told Hypertextual.
Adolescence is not a time to be alone
For adolescents this period has been even more difficult. Herráez defined that adolescence is a period of change in which personal identity is sought. “That is why it is so important to cover this need for integration and social recognition. If it does not happen, you can have difficulties on a psychological level that can directly affect the development of the personality. “In the event that it is not possible to fit in, it can generate a feeling of loneliness.” That can be a social lynching and the group of geeks, the marginalized, can be passed. There are also many difficulties for LGBTQ people, “added Ignasi Puig Rodas.
Social networks, as the psychologists consulted by Hypertextual, are a key tool to know how to make friends and find environments in which a person can feel comfortable. But they all also agree that physical contact is unmatched and that, in the end, you always end up missing.
Finding friends isn’t always easy (and age doesn’t matter)
We have heard criticism of adolescents more than once because they supposedly they only interact through a screen and they don’t know how to socialize without them. This way of thinking is becoming increasingly backward and, in a way, a lie. Psychologists such as Ignasi Puig Rodas explained that all skills are practiced and it is true that if a person is used to socializing only through a screen, they can have problems when they do so physically.
But, on the other hand, this problem is not only limited to adolescents. While many of them go to social networks like TikTok, others wonder how to make friends from other networks. As Luís, 33, an Instagram user, pointed out, his generation uses this social network more frequently than TikTok. And in the end, the image of a group of friends in a bar looking at their mobile is not a teenage thing.
“In the end we all feel insecure and we go to the networks, either to see things that make us feel good, to talk to people who understand us or to laugh. And we all have this need to connect with people and belong, the difference is that maybe the 20-year-old watches TikTok and I watch Instagram, “he concluded.