Gender Communication and Friendship

This essay explores how friendships change over time, from college to near midlife, as well as what differences and similarities exist in the formation of friendships between women and men. I was able to ask two of my older friends (a male friend and a female friend) about their experiences with forming friendships over the years, how their experiences with forming friendships pre-technology compared to their experiences now, given the ubiquity of technology. In addition, I asked them about their own friendships, whether they had formed primarily same-sex friendships or whether their friendships were more mixed-gender. I was also interested in how they go about forming friendships, such as whether they intentionally seek out people to include in their social circle or whether they tend to find themselves in friendships with the people they’re familiar with through work and other social activities they’re interested in (such as church).

As expected, there were some shared experiences between my female and male friend--for instance, both have kept in touch with friends from high school and college, though not necessarily kept in close contact. My female friend considers technology to have helped in this regard, and keeps in touch with friends who are physically far away through social media sites such as Facebook. My male friend noted that some of the close friends he had back in his college and high school days aren’t necessarily as close as they once were, while some friends he wasn’t as close with back in those days have become closer friends. Both have friends who they befriended at work, though my female friend seemed to consider the friendships as more intimate than my male friend--my female friend seemed more willing to have contact with them outside of a workplace setting, whereas my male friend explicitly said that he doesn’t consider the friendships to be close, and that he doesn’t really socialize with them outside of the workplace.

The biggest difference I found between my female and male friend was their friendship gender ratio. My female friend has consistently had a mixed-gender group of friends, though she does admit that she is more likely to socialize with her female friends outside of work; my male friend say that his close friendships since college have been primarily with women. The two of them seemed to view technology-assisted friendships differently, as well, with my female friend being more open to having online friendships, and my male friend considering technology a hinderance to forming friendships. My male friend seemed to place more importance on seeing someone face-to-face, and doing activities with them, than simply interacting with people via online social media. He was of the opinion that technology hinders the formation of friendships for teenagers today; my female friend acknowledged that she considers technology to be a general boon to her social life, and that she believes that technology (specifically, social media sites such as Facebook) make it more convenient for teenagers (and younger college students) to keep in touch.

It was interesting to note, when reviewing the interviews, how readily my male and female friend fit the patterns described in GenderSpeak regarding communication and language use between men and women (Ivy 168-174). Specifically, my male friend finds it easier to be close friends with women, and thinks that doing activities with other people is how you help to form a friendship; while my female friend views social media sites (which are less about doing something than they are about talking to other people) more acceptable in the formation and reinforcement of friendships, and is more likely to have a mixed-gender group of friends than my male friend.

I was also interested to note their views on how technology affects the relationships of younger generations, as both of them work at a college (not the same one--one works for a larger university, the other for a community college) and so might have a better insight into how technology affects younger college students’ friendships. That they have such different views of how technology affects the younger generations’ friendships and relationships is startling.

As part of a generation which is more used to online-mediated friendships (when friends move away, you still want to keep in touch with them, and the internet gives you near-instant communication after all), I’m used to the benefits of online-mediated friendships, and some of the challenges. My male friend seemed to regard technology as a negative in the forming and maintaining friendships--he categorized technology as being a negative in regards to forming and maintaining friendships, in fact--and how positively, or at least neutrally, my female friend regarded the use of technology to assist in forming and maintaining friendships. I don’t think I realize just how positively I, personally, view my online friendships until I found myself disagreeing so strongly with my male friend’s perspective of technology and friendship. Primarily due to the fact that most of my time is spent either at work or in school (both online classrooms and physical classrooms), it’s both gratifying and sanity-protecting to be able to check Facebook when I have a free minute, and have that connection with my friends. I know that once my life has calmed down a bit, I’ll want that face-to-face, in-the-same-room friendship, but without social media I know that I would have missed out on some great friendships while I was trying to get my life going.

Works Cited:
Ivy, Diana K. GenderSpeak: Personal Effectiveness in Gender Communication (5th Edition). Boston: Pearson, 2012. Print.