Our social lives in early adulthood can impact our emotional well-being decades later.
That's the finding of 30-year study from the University of Rochester.
In the 1970s and 1980s, a group of 20-year-olds were asked to report on their social interactions as they were happening. Then, when they were 50 years old, the study participants filled out an online survey about their emotional well-being.
“People who had frequent social activity at age 20 were more likely to have better friendships and to be better psychologically adjusted, in that they were less lonely and less depressed by the time they got to age 50," said Cheryl Carmichael, the study's lead author.
In early adulthood, the goal of socializing is acquiring knowledge about ourselves and others through our interactions. “And it's sort of contributing to building a tool set that we can draw on as we progress through adulthood, so we learn skills that we take with us."
She says our social needs change as we age.
"They switch from this sort of information-seeking goal to more of an emotion-seeking goal. And we find that by age 30, it's really the quality of your emotional experiences that predict your later well-being."
Carmichael says she doesn't have the data to determine whether today's social media interactions are changing the way people build intimacy.
"The way intimacy can be built is through having a meaningful connection to somebody; sharing something personal and giving them an opportunity to respond to us and to let them know that they understand where we're coming from. Being able to build that intimacy is important. Whether that can be done through social media; I have questions about that. I think it's an open question."
Her advice to a 20-year old today is to get out and socialize as much possible.
Carmichael, a PhD candidate who is now a professor of psychology at Brooklyn College, wants to continue to follow the same group of people in this study to see how these early-in-life social interactions may affect health and longevity as we age.
