Changes of friendship ties during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Voluntarily chosen friendships play an important integrating role and contribute greatly to an individual’s well-being. In this study, we review changes in friendship relationships during the pandemic period from several perspectives, based on qualitative data collected in spring 2021 and quantitative data collected at the end of 2021. We examine friendships and loss of friendships in the interpersonal networks of individuals in different socio-demographic groups before and during the pandemic, and then look at changes in the quality of friendships, the type of contact and the frequency of contact that persisted during the pandemic.

A third of survey respondents mentioned a friend as one of the most important people to them. Friendly relationships are more fragile than family relationships, with young people, Budapest residents and women in particular reporting higher rates of loss of friendships. Personal contact with friends also declined, especially among people with a higher level of education and people living in larger settlements. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the quality of friendships declined somewhat. Based on the interviews, friendships that were broken were typically more recent or less close.