What’s the key to modern-day friendship? Mainly, shared interests, says a new study.
Researchers in Britain have carried out the study and found that people cho-ose friends mainly because they have shared interests and not necessarily because they like them most, the Journal of the Royal Society Interface reported. They have found that having enth-usiasms and hobbies form a strong bond but when people change those interests, people change their friends as well. For their study, the researchers studied social networking portal Facebook-style websites to try and unlock the secrets of real-life friendship. Millions of people are members of Facebook, or Twitter, where they join “groups” according to their likes, or hobbies. This phenomenon leads to friends being grouped more and more by cliques, and led academics to analyse the social butterfly effect — how people change friends through lives. During the study, the researchers built a computer model of a real social network. They discovered throughout society people often form cliques and circles of friends with common interests, such as politics, music or even the same profession, the Daily Telegraph reported.
Even if friendships are fleeting, people gravitate to those who enjoy the same things we do or support the same football team, the researchers said.