Losing touch with friends is a natural part of life but attempting to rekindle old friendships can be a daunting prospect and a new study explains why people are often hesitant to reconnect.
The study was led by psychologists Professor Lara Aknin from Canada’s Simon Fraser University (SFU) and Dr Gillian Sandstrom from the University of Sussex in the UK who are old friends themselves and were inspired to carry out their research after rekindling their own friendship in 2022 in the hopes it might help others engage with friends they’ve lost contact with.
Researchers carry out study into why people are hesitant to rekindle old friendships
Dr Sandstrom, who is a senior lecturer in the psychology of kindness said in a news release: “We live in a time when people are more and more disconnected, and have fewer close friends than they used to in years past. And this is despite the multitude of modern-day communication channels available to us.
“With research finding that it takes more than 200 hours of contact to turn a new acquaintance into a close friend, we wanted to find out if and why people were overlooking another pathway to meaningful connection: reviving pre-existing close friendships.”
Published in the journal Nature Communications Psychology, the joint research project saw the psychologists examine a sample of 2,500 participants and their attitudes towards reconnecting with lapsed friendships and the barriers that prevent them from reconnecting.
“We found that the majority of participants (90%) in our first study had lost touch with someone they still care about. Yet, a significant number (70%) were neutral, or even negative, about the idea of getting back in touch in that moment, even when they felt warmly about the friendship,” explains Professor Aknin, director of the Helping and Happiness Lab at SFU.
One of the elements that made up the research project was an intervention where participants were given the opportunity to reconnect with an old friend. In two studies, just 28% and 37% of people elected to send a message.
The reasons people are reluctant to contact an old friend
To boost their understanding of why people are hesitant to reconnect with old friends, the psychologists asked participants to rate their willingness to carry out a series of activities, including calling or texting a friend they had lost touch with.
Incredibly, the respondents were as reluctant to reach out to an old friend as they would be to strike up a conversation with a stranger or even to pick up litter off the floor.
The main reasons why people were hesitant to get in touch with an old friend included fears that their counterpart might not want to hear from them, that it would be ‘too awkward after all this time,’ as well as feeling ‘guilty’ for losing touch.
Despite it often being an excuse we tell ourselves, a perception of being too busy – both the old friend and the participant – was the lowest cited reason for not reaching out.
The researchers noted that participants felt there were only a few legitimate reasons for getting in touch with an old friend, the two biggest of which included messaging on a friend’s birthday and reconnecting over a shared memory or experience.
Participants were least likely to get in touch if they had to ask an old friend for a favor.
How you can reconnect: ‘Practice makes progress’
As well as examining why people may fear getting back in touch with an old friend, the study also looked into ways people can reconnect should they want to.
Using previous research conducted by Sandstrom, the researchers found that practicing social connection with current close friends made it much easier for participants to reach out to old friends by a rate of over two-thirds.
“Given that participants were as hesitant to reach out to a stranger as someone they had previously been close with, we drew inspiration from previous research I had conducted on talking to strangers, which found that practice made progress,” explained Dr Sandstrom. “When people were given time to practice in a situation that felt more comfortable, namely by sending messages to current friends, they were much more likely to make the leap to messaging someone they had lost touch with.”
Professor Aknin added: “We know from decades of research that social relationships are a key source of happiness and meaning in our lives.
“Gillian and I are old friends, dating back to our time as PhD students in Canada. We’ve been in touch on and off ever since, but most recently reconnected on New Year’s Day 2022 when I emailed her to say that I missed her and wanted to collaborate on a new project. We took inspiration from our period of disconnection and decided to study if and when people are willing to reach out to old friends.
“We hope these findings prompt other people to send that first message to someone that they miss in their lives.”
