Question

In the Benefits vs. Costs worksheet, you looked at how friends might exchange rewards in a relationship. This exchange might occur more easily when friends live near one another, and would occur based on the proximity-attraction principle as we choose friends from those who live close by. However, technology has changed this pattern to some extent, giving us the ability to socialize easily from great distances. List three proximal friendships and three distant friendships and describe how you stay in touch. How do you describe the benefits vs. costs in proximal vs. distant friendships based on your own interactions?

Answer 1

This is a good question which is making me think. Well my distant friends are the ones with whom I used to hang out in college days and since everbody of us has got married it is now difficuilt to meet. Hence, maintaining a whatss app group, has helped us reeinjoying our memories, sharing the feelings, emptying our mind, without talking as texts also denote lot of emotions. Another group is my school friends group - with whom though I was not close, but by reuniting on whatss app help us knowing each other after 15 years, we share different ideas, hobbies, pic of family, recpies etc. Thrid group is of cousins - In today's world, it is difficuilt to maintain relationships which whatss app or face book allows us to do so. Hence by greeting on birthdays, or even by sending good morning messages help us to be close knitted. The Costs of above all groups is, there is more of the virtual world that we are living into and sometimes if we meet face to face we do not know what to speak.

Coming to my proximal friends - which I have in apartment, we often meet each other, enjoy raising our kids together, actually share recepies, come and be in help whenever required, understand each other more etc. Costs are they are not as closer as we had childhood friendhips, we can not always tell them everything since the biggest risk of the proximality. Another one is we have no liberty to choose, because of they are negighbours hence at some points we just have to compromise.