50% of the people you consider friends don't think the same about you

Technology makes us have some distorted notions of reality, and it's not common to find people who believe that the number of Facebook friends matches the number of real-life friends.

Of course, we know that on Facebook there is always that person we add for convenience anyway, but even so, half the people you say are your friends just don't think the same about you.

A study released by Mental Floss reveals that we may have more one-sided friendships than we thought. To achieve this result, MIT scientists asked 84 university students to evaluate how much they knew the people in their classes.

This assessment also had a part of telling if the person was little known, friend or one of his best friends. In addition, participants had to predict other people's response to them.

Lack of reciprocity

The results showed that students think that people they consider friends would say the same about themselves, which was definitely not the case: almost half of all friendships were not reciprocal.

For researchers, this may have to do with social status, since people tend to call themselves friends who have a good social reputation, while the most popular people are demanding and know very well who they can call friends.

Maintaining good friendships is related to great health benefits, including longevity and mental health. It is not known, however, whether non-reciprocal friendships are bad, but certainly this phenomenon can help us better understand friendships and, in terms of modernity, how people perceive their interactions on social networks.