Transformation of Friendships: Diversifying Intimate Relationships in Japanese Youth

The purpose of this report is to clarify the transformation of friendships in Japan over the past 20 years using quantitative data. In particular, we will examine a remarkable weakness in the expansion tendency of friendships, which can be said to be the collapse of the "friends bubble".

This report primarily utilizes data from three surveys on actual media usage conducted by the Mobile Communication Research Group, targeting individuals aged 12 to 69 across Japan (2001, 2011, and 2021). Specifically, it aims to reveal the changes in the number of friends and the ways of interacting with friends over the past 20 years, in relation to media usage. Next, it investigates the factors contributing to the weakening of the inclination to expand friendships.

The current survey has revealed a notable weakening of the inclination to expand friendships.Regarding this trend, it is explained that in the context of reflexive modernity, friendships developed through the process of "disembedding" (a shift from extrinsic criteria, such as kinship and neighborhood, to intrinsic criteria). Nevertheless, due to the anxieties associated with constructing intrinsic criteria, these friendships underwent a process of "reembedding." However, the diversity of friendships has not necessarily been lost, and this perspective of a return to external criteria does not fully explain the situation. It reveals that the privilege of relationships previously categorized as 'friends' has diminished amid the diversification of intimate relationships.