There is some surprise at the results of a survey which suggest as many as 6.7% of Japanese questioned have no friends at all…
The survey, with over 13,000 participants, found 6.7% of respondents had no friends at all, whilst 22.2% had 3-4, 20.6% had 5-6, and 23.8% had over 11.
Friends were mostly made at high school (55.4%) and at work (52.4%), as well as at university (38.1%) and middle and elementary school (34.1%/24.3%), with hobby related connections trailing at 25.1%. 8% came from online acquaintances.
Curiously, 17.1% of respondents stated they found such relationships “troublesome”…
Similar figures for other countries are not hard to come by – 2003 Gallup polls of Americans asked “Not counting your relatives, about how many close friends would you say you have?” yielded an average of 8.6 friends:
0 – 2%
1 – 6%
2 – 8%
3 – 11%
4 – 11%
5 – 17%
6-9 – 18%
10+ – 27%
Whether a “close friend” equates to a “tomodachi” in Japanese culture is open to question (as is whether Japanese actually agree on what a “friend” is), but it certainly seems the social circles of some Japanese are shrinking… Just how many of these are actual hikikomori and otaku is not known.
Becomes only a problem if you have nobody (not friends necessarily) to exchange with. Mind doesn’t stomache that well and things make a turn on the weird side. You start discussion with strangers…what old people often do in the supermarket. Or talk to yourself just to hear your voice again or someone answering.
Just came from a post that listed side by side “7% of Japanese Men reject onanism” and “7% of Japanese have no friends”
having many friend is good, but too comfortable with having many friend is not good.
from what I know you can have lots of friend while you teenage. then it decreased when you gets adult.
some have to move far away from their community,
it will test your mentality with zero friend in new environment.
7%!!!!
OMG what a horrible tragedy…. not.
Wouldn't be surprised if 7% of Canadians have no friends.
I don't know anyone that has no friends mind you as all the people I know are not tragic hermits.
If asked how many people I know I can call friend (in the acquaintance sense of the word though as I use the term 'friend' to denote a person that earned the term), well it could take me a long time to list them all. And that's just the people I know locally in person.
It would take me all day if I had to add the internet connections too.
No I am not 'great' or anything like that, I'm just not a hermit.
I got one friend and that’s more than enough. The question is, would I feel this way without the Internet?