Robin Dunbar's Essay What Does Friend Mean Now?

Improved Essays
Friendship like other words that describe relationships, has a spectrum of degrees that describe the kind, quality and time invested into that particular relationship. In a world that seems to get smaller and smaller everyday due to its increasing connectivity to each other it seems inevitable that people would be more easily focused on the breadth and number of their relationships rather than the quality and depth of them. Because of this you could say that people nowadays are more likely to develop acquaintances and leave their relationship there at that end of the spectrum than before. As quoted in the article “What does ‘friend’ mean now?” it seems that Anthropologist Robin Dunbar would agree with my point of view. He mentions that based

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Friendship is a very big, and important aspect of a person’s life. It brings joy even in the harshest of situations, it shapes your identity and it is a place where you can be your true self. Friendship is important because it brings joy even in the harshest…

    • 1017 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Leslie-Baker Phelps would agree that “friendships in the present influence the nature of your friendships in the future.” When people who are close to you share interests such as emotions, it creates a bond of trust. For example, your peers can affect what kind of clothes you wear, your political opinions and even your emotions. Furthermore, how your friends think and react to you will have a heavy outcome on your perceptions of yourself. It is extremely important and imperative to control a healthy friendship, because a detrimental one could severely impact your life in a destructive manner (Phelps).…

    • 1044 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Human behavior often seems mysterious and hard to predict, and despite this, it follows rules and patterns that can be observed and studied. One such pattern is known as Dunbar’s number. Dunbar’s number is, in fact, a series of numbers that represent the number of friends a typical person has that fit varying categories of familiarity and closeness. Maria Konnikova writes about Robin Dunbar’s research in her essay “The Limits of Friendship.” Robin Marantz Henig discusses the current plight of American millennials trying and failing to adjust to the world fast enough and become adults in “What is it About 20-Somethings?”…

    • 1091 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It has become a throwaway word that does not truly mean the same thing on the internet than what it originally meant. Social media sites have turned being friends into someone who didn’t find the other person immediately creepy and accepted the friend request. Angela Harmon stated in “Social Media and Relationships” that this rapid accumulation of false friends “Can lead people to focus much of their attention on these perceived online relationships and ignore real-life connections, causing misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and breakups.” People will say they are friends, but at the most they mean acquaintances. People will say they are online friends, but they probably have had very little interaction.…

    • 1002 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Social dynamics have changed as face-to-face communication has been replaced. People no longer want to see each other if they can just as easily get in touch with others by texting them or friending them on Facebook. Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler note that “’We end up staying in touch with more acquaintances. But that doesn’t mean we have more friends’”…

    • 1451 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Cicero: Laulius de Amictia “On Friendship” In present time, a friendship is often known to be a valuable thing in life, a friend is a gift that is cherished for those who have good friendships. A friendship is shown in various ways and has different meanings a friend is a friend who is someone outside your family who you can trust and rely on. In history there have been alliances between countries, in which it could have extended to having an acquaintance or even as a friendship agreement between leaders. In previous decades though what did friendship mean and was it valued the way friendship is presently.…

    • 1779 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Relationships with an emotional foundation tend to have longevity, whereas more peripheral relationships are less stable, and dissipate over time (Hutchison, 2015). During adolescence, one is apt to learn as much as they can about the world. Thus, adolescents tend to have many relationships which changes in middle adulthood. Middle-aged adults report having fewer friendships than their younger counterparts, however, these relationships can still be impactful. For example, having close friends at the age of 50 for men predicts better physical health by age 70.…

    • 1149 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Mark Erndt Jr was born june 29th 1997. He came out of his mother at a whopping 11lbs and 2 feet long. He attended Mount Forest elementary for kindergarten and 1st grade, then switched schools to St. Michaels elementary for 2nd-3rd grade, and finished 4th-6th back in Mt. Forest. In elementary he was a very smart child, doing very well in all subjects and showing intelligence greater than the majority of his peers. He did not have many friends in elementary, he only had his best friends Dylann and Arthur.…

    • 840 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Is technology killing our friendships? The answer is yes. Technology is killing our friendships. My reasons three reasons are that your friends on social media won’t be able to help you through hard times or be there to share your happiness. My second reason is that your friends may not be who they say they are.…

    • 731 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the realistic fiction short story “the Amigo Brothers” by Piri Thomas, shows how two boys by the name of Antonio and Felix. These seventeen year-old boys are best friends and award winning boxers. As the story progressed conflict developed. The two amigo brothers soon discovered they had to fight each other to be the true “champion”.…

    • 571 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Friendship is defined in the dictionary as the state of being friends and a friendly feeling. Not everyone is a friend. There are varying levels of “friendship.” Now, in the era of Facebook, people may say they have a thousand friends, but not every one of those thousand followers on Instagram will feed you chicken soup when you are sick. A friend is an ally, provides support and gives encouragement.…

    • 932 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Effects of Technology on Society In Maria Konnikova's article, "The Limits of Friendship" she explores the theoretical number of friends people can really have, also known as the Dunbar number, and whether social media has affected the way people perceive friend groups. In Konnikova’s article, “The Limits of Friendship,” technology has affected people’s social skills by allowing us to stay connected with people all over the world, but prevent us from making deeper face to face connections and prevent new generations from learning how to deal with real world problems and situations. In the article, Konnikova questions whether increasingly pervasive virtual interaction influences a person's friend groups for current and new generations. The theoretical number of friends the average person could have in his or her social group is called the Dunbar number.…

    • 1037 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    “What my opinion about friendship is that it is true women are drawn into the emotional state they might be or how i am doing. Whereas men are more draw to talk about sports and talking about if they seen the soccer game and seen how much they lost and all this stuff, and also to talk about how much one 's making and how their work is going. Whereas a women is more worried about how their personal life is going.” Friendships provide affection, companionship, understanding, and social support and therefore contribute to well-being. Friends can also affect the status, power, wealth, attitudes, behaviors, and values of middle-aged people.…

    • 1872 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Friendship is a large part of many people’s life. It can bring you some of the best times of your life and lots of fun. Although it may seem all rainbows and butterflies, it can also bring many hardships. John Knowles focuses his novel on the friendship of two boys, Gene and Finny. Gene flashes back into his time in Devon to understand his friendship with Finny and reconcile with it.…

    • 965 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The question as to whether a man and a woman can just be friends is one that has been debated for many years. The question may be answered depending on when you were born and what the culture of friendship and dating were at the time. There have been many studies linked to friendship, including opposite-sex and same-sex friendship as described in the article, by April L. Bleske and David M. Buss, titled: Can men and women be just friends? This article discusses the methodology of two studies performed to test evolution-based hypotheses and their outcomes. Friendships in general can provide benefits to both parties as well as inflict costs.…

    • 1035 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays