<p>I lost touch with most of my high school friends after going to college. Now that it costs nothing to stay in touch via email or Facebook, are more high school friendships than used to be the case? Maybe parents could comment based on the experiences of their children. Mostly I am asking this question out of curiosity, but if high school friendships are more likely to be maintained than formerly, that makes the choice of high school more important.</p>
<p>Interesting question… I would say we went through a period when high school friendships may have been less important when we were such a mobile society in the 70s/80s/90s – so many people didn’t stay in their hometowns. It was easy to lose touch then. But it isn’t just our kids who are in touch with high school friends now – I have reconnected with many of my old high school friends in the past few years. I doubt I would be in touch with many more than I am now if we had started our adult lives with Facebook, though. So I am not sure my kids are going to retain closer connections than that with their high school buddies than I have now.</p>
<p>I don’t think so. My kids seem to have outgrown their high school friends. Older D (5 years out of HS) has gotten together occasionally with HS friends, but they do not have much in common. Son only had a few HS friends to begin with, one is at his college. They don’t use Facebook much anymore either. Youngest D can’t wait to get to college and make new friends, although there are a few from HS she may keep in touch with.</p>
<p>My kid has been home this summer and he’s only seen one friend once. However, he’s been all over the northeast meeting up with his friends from college.</p>
<p>I think it is easier to stay in touch since they are all so digital anyway, but if their interest and location change they will probably still drift apart. </p>
<p>They will probably stay in “contact” better than we did but not necessarily be part of their every day social circle. Sometimes friends are friends because you are part of the same group, or sports team etc. and once that connection is gone you won’t have as much interest in getting together.</p>
<p>Mine might be different. All three have maintained their high school friendships. They are in their late twenties to early thirties. All three still have the first friends they made when we moved here when they were in early elementary school. They have added friends in high school and again in college, but they never lost their old ones.</p>
<p>My most social kid as remained in touch with many HS friends, nearly a decade later, my non-social butterfly is in touch with one or two friends from HS & one from childhood.</p>
<p>I think it will depend how close they were and how interests change/evolve over time. As pop says, they will stay in contact, but may not be friends.</p>
<p>I’m a college student and had about 5 very close friends in high school, and I’ve kept up with all of them (we hang out a lot on breaks and text and Facebook relatively frequently). Beyond that, I haven’t really kept in touch with anyone from my high school. </p>
<p>Most of my college friends live far from my hometown (my college attracts kids from all over), so it’s only thanks to technology that I keep up with them over breaks. I guess it’s college friends during the school year and high school friends in the summer for me.</p>
<p>Social networking makes it much easier to stay in touch with old friends if your kids choose to. Both of mine have. 20+ of my son’s HS friends are attending his wedding next month, although most of their guests are post-high school friends. My daughter has a handful of very close friends from high school whom she still sees on a regular basis. Some of these kids went away to college, but came back to California to settle. Others are working in other parts of the country, but still get together when they are in the area.</p>
<pre><code>My husband and I have often remarked about how large our kids’ social circles are compared to our own at their ages. I don’t remember spending weekends entertaining friends to the degree that they do. Young people also go great distances to attend each others weddings. Last year, son and fiance traveled to Texas and to Boston to attend weddings. Next year, daughter is going to Asia for a wedding. We would never have dreamed of doing that!
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<p>Dh and I do get together regularly with three couples where one of the spouses was a high school buddy. But then, the high school Dh and I attended is about a mile from our house. 
We left in our twenties, but came back to our home town to raise our kids.</p>
<p>Oh my.</p>
<p>I am friends on Facebook with 53 people from my HS class. I am truly “friends” with probably 12 of them. </p>
<p>S1 is to be best man in a HS friend’s wedding this Sunday, 10 years after graduation. There will be about eight of them there, from the same group in HS.</p>
<p>S2, on the other hand – not so much.</p>
<p>It depends on the person.</p>
<p>No. I have too many middle school and high school friends in Facebook that I don’t talk to. If I didn’t have a Facebook it wouldn’t affect how much I talk to them. I’ll just call them or hang out with them. </p>
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Not sure how one could come to this conclusion. It’s just high school.</p>
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<p>There is no such thing as “just” anything in the Beliavsky household. Everything is about grooming his children to be the best at all costs. </p>
<p>I keep up with people I was close to in high school. However, I would’ve been close to them with or without facebook. Those that I would’ve lost touch with, I’ve lost touch with… even if we are FB friends.</p>
<p>My D was in many activities in HS and was very much the social butterfly. I think she knew by the time that senior year started that these were not her life long friends. She told me by January of senior year that there would be just one girl, her BFF, that she would keep in close contact with and see when she was home. The others may stay friends via FB, but maybe not.</p>
<p>True to her word, as soon as all of the graduation parties happened, her FB friends list became smaller and she has only kept in touch with the one friend on a consistent basis, though there is a second one that she sees from time to time on her school breaks, though it is not at every break that she sees the 2nd young woman.</p>
<p>D had over 500 in her graduating class, so it was not like she was forced into friendships with people she had no shared interests with. There were lots of kids to choose from when making friends. She choose to make adult friendships at college.</p>
<p>Facebook allows hs friends to keep in touch. And it seems they do so a lot in the first weeks and months of school. But over time, my distant college kid seems in contact with fewer and fewer hs friend. Sometimes he will see one or two of them over break, but no more big parties.</p>
<p>I had a VERY close knit group of friends from 6th grade that started to drift apart by mid college-- up until then we were still very close. I am only still in touch with one of maybe 10 people, and only via Facebook-- I don’t think I’ve properly spoken to him in years. I just know he’s working in Boston and still with his college sweetheart, and he knows I work in insurance and am engaged to somebody he knows nothing about. </p>
<p>I don’t think Facebook makes up for time and distance. I know what some of my old friends are up to, generally speaking, but we didnt stay close.</p>
<p>Ds1, a 2010 HS grad, is with two HS friends right now. He had plenty of friends in HS but none that I would say were super-close. When he’s home he hangs with a lot of them though. I think it has more to do with ds becoming more social as he’s matured, but Facebook had helped them stay in touch.</p>