When Online Friendships Are Real Friendships
Here’s our guide for how to make friends as a teen online and find connections that are appropriate, meaningful, and long-lasting.
Like it or not, we live in a digital age. Daily activities that used to be analog have now moved online: shopping for groceries, reading reviews, getting directions, watching movies, sharing art…but what about making friends? In a world where online friendships are becoming more and more common, many are wondering if online friends count as “real friends,” if online friendships are good or bad, and how one goes about making online friends. Young people living through the midst of the loneliness epidemic (and the parents who care about them) are especially curious. Is it normal for teens to have online friends? Are online friendships true friendships? If so, where can teens make friends online? All of us nerds at Young Dragonslayers have been online quite a while, and we’ve seen the good, bad, and ugly of digital connections, especially for the tweens and teens we work with. Here’s what we suggest to skip the surface-level connections, the sketchy strangers, and the ghost-happy anons and make true friends online, at any age!
Are Online Friendships Good or Bad For Teens?
Unfortunately, some online “friends” are not real friends, and can be flaky, mean, or even inappropriate.
We run online Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) groups for teens and tweens, so we’ve seen how the internet can help young people find meaningful connection. But before we share about the friendships we’ve seen forged online, we have to acknowledge that not all online “friendships” are such positive experiences, especially for young people. As digital worlds (and the cultures around them) become more and more optimized for convenience, we can become less invested in others, only responding when we “feel like it” or checking out of a relationship when we find someone annoying, needy, or a bummer. Not a recipe for a good friendships!
Particularly when interacting anonymously, people on the internet can also be rude, mean, or straight-up hateful, even with people they’ve interacted with before. The added buffer of a screen and a username can bring out behavior you’d never see face-to-face. This can also facilitate toxic, inappropriate, or manipulative relationships – unhealthy at any age, but especially for young people! Hearing about these kinds of interactions leads parents to be rightfully cautious about their teen making friends online.
But we’ve seen genuine, meaningful friendships form online, too. Not only that, but we’ve lived it out ourselves; the crew at Young Dragonslayers are all online friends, too! We give each other ideas for games, tell stories, share pictures of our kids and pets, and sometimes even meet in person. Good online friendships are possible!
How To Make Friends as a Teen Online
How do teens make friends online? Many of the same ways they make friends in person!
So how do teens make online friends that are real? It may not surprise you to know that these friendships are formed from the same key ingredients as in-person friendships. The first is shared interests. This is a common component of friendship both in-person or online, but it’s a particularly common element of internet connections. With online forums, sites, groups, and servers dedicated to interests from dirt biking to Minecraft, teens can easily find others with similar interests and strike up a conversation. These shared interests not only facilitate that initial conversation, but foster opportunities for new ones, which can build and grow over time. Which leads us to the second ingredient: consistent communication. One or two good conversations or shared activities are great, but a good friendship is one that’s built on history, care, and consistency. Teens logging back in to check on one another, asking how they’re doing, answering their messages, and making plans to play, watch, or create together again form the building blocks of a friendship over time. Finally, as all parents know, a good friendship needs to be appropriate. No creepy adults lying about their age, nobody asking for inappropriate pictures, and no manipulative or toxic behavior. This is key in any friendship, but the digital nature of the internet calls for extra vigilance to protect against bad actors.
Teens, Technology, and Friendships
Games and other shared activities are great ways for teens to make friends online.
The journey to making friends online is similar to making friends in person, but online friendships themselves have some distinct advantages over in-person friendships. The ability to connect with people across the globe can be a miracle for some teens. Shy teens, misfits, or even just kids desperate to find someone, anybody, who shares their niche nerdy interests can connect in a low-stakes environment with people like them. Additionally, the internet can also expose teens to people with diverse identities, perspectives, and ideas that they might never have encountered in their day-to-day life! Many young people who join our groups do so because they can’t find anyone to play with in their hometown, are struggling to make friends in person, or just moved and are feeling disconnected.
Friends online also aren’t connected to a teen’s normal social groups. By going online, kids who are bullied can get a fresh start with peers who don’t know their history. Online friends can vent to one another about the latest drama at school without worrying about disparaging a mutual friend or what gets back to who. These online friendship can help teens get some distance from their day-to-day social interactions, which is a huge relief at that age.
With that distance can come space to explore identity. Online friends didn’t know about your awkward phase in middle school; they don’t know how you typically dress, and they may not even know what you look like. Online, teenagers can explore different kinds of self-expression from gender to aesthetic to vocabulary at a time where they forming their own identity into young adulthood. Interacting in a digital space can also give certain teens an opportunity to be “normal” in a way they can’t in person. Nobody on a zoom call knows if they’re sitting in a desk chair or a wheelchair. A groupchat has no way to know if they have a speech impediment or if they’re a talented public speaker. Teens don’t have to worry about disclosing their disability status or finding physical accommodations if they’re connecting with people on the internet. (For a great example of the power of online friendships, check out the documentary The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, about a boy with muscular dystrophy who maintained a vibrant social life in his teens and twenties through the online game World of Warcraft.)
Are Online Friendships True Friendships?
Communicating with friends online is normal for teenagers, no matter where they met.
In conclusion, yes, we do think that online friends can be real friends. People who know and like each other, like, spend time with one another, and care for each other are friends, whether they share a screen or a room. We’ve seen it happen. Every week, we get to watch friendships develop in real time as social skills build, inside jokes develop, and what was once a bunch of random faces on a zoom call becomes a group of real friends. They talk to each other about their classes, families and extracurriculars, share their favorite movies, TV shows, and video games, and occasionally descend into meme-fueled fits of silliness. They make and share art of one another’s characters or powerpoint presentations about which is the best season of their favorite shows. They help each other build characters for the game, understand how spells work, or get pesky software up and running. Some even start up gaming groups with each other on their own time!
Where Can Teens Make Friends Online?
While there are many online friendship sites for teens and places for teens to make friends online, we think Young Dragonslayers is one of the best. We run Dungeons & Dragons, a collaborative game in which players take on the role of a fictional character and go on quests and adventures with others. D&D is an amazing way to build social skills and make friends, and we’ve ensured Young Dragonslayers games have all of the ingredients needed for real friendships. Our players have shared interests. They not only all want to play Dungeons & Dragons, but one geeky interest tends to lead to another, and we’ve seen our players connect over everything from video games to anime. Our players also communicate consistently. Our groups meet every week with the same people, and it doesn’t take much time for them to start chatting with one another about life outside the game (sometimes we have to work to get them back on track)! Our players get to play in a safe, secure environment. We host private, moderated meetings, screen players ahead of time, and carefully vet each and every one of our Game Masters, including training them to keep things safe, supportive, and fun.
If you know a teen who may benefit from a Young Dragonslayers group, why not join our waitlist? We’ll give you a call to learn more about your child, let the, play a trial game to see how you play, and put them in a group with peers of similar age, interests, and play style so they can see for themselves the true value of online friendships.
