Friendships … they can be fulfilling and fraught, especially for young people.
But, until now, the contributions that friendships make to our identity, sense of belonging and wellbeing have been largely subjective.
Enter clinical psychologist and UNE alumna and Adjunct Senior Research Fellow Dr Mary Kaspar, founder of The Friendship Project. For two years she has been delivering a program to Australian school students on how to develop and maintain healthy friendships. Now she is evaluating its impact, in collaboration with UNE researchers Associate Professor Kylie Rice and Associate Professor Natasha Loi.
“This pilot study will focus on the role friendships play in alleviating loneliness and supporting social wellbeing in young people,” Dr Kaspar says. “Loneliness is an international epidemic and a global public health concern. The 2026 World Happiness Report (published by the University of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre) showed that wellbeing and happiness levels in Australian young people have fallen considerably in the past few years, consistent with the United States, Canada and New Zealand. This supports headspace National Youth Mental Health Foundation findings from 2022 that nearly two-thirds of young people felt lonely or left out often or some of the time.”
And while the World Happiness Report identified excessive social media use as a major factor in decreased youth wellbeing in Australia, we can’t blame it all on social media use, according to Dr Kaspar.
“Navigating friendships in today’s fast-evolving era of social media and Artificial Intelligence is certainly more difficult for young people, who are most at risk, but it’s not quite that simple. The World Happiness Report found that a sense of belonging was associated with substantially larger differences in young people’s life satisfaction than screen time alone.
“Friendships are foundational, socially and emotionally, and we are only just beginning to understand how important they are. A sense of mattering shapes young people’s wellbeing and strong friendships can be a buffer to the effects of social media. But not all friendships are equal.”
A healthy friendship is considered one in which the two parties are invested in each another, will be there in challenging times and celebrate each other’s successes.
“Some friendships are merely transactional friendships, and we see that commonly on social media, with its constant social comparisons and confusing extrinsic motivations. Maintaining good friendships seems particularly challenging for young girls, who we know are more affected emotionally by relational aggression.”
Which necessitates a more rigorous scientific assessment of the structured program Dr Kaspar delivers to teens, including sessions on friendship dynamics, conflict and belonging.
“There is growing international interest in research exploring loneliness in young people, and friendship quality is an important part of that conversation,” says Dr Kaspar. “It is important to assess – before and after – how programs like mine can contribute to strong friendships, for the benefit of young people, their parents, schools and entire communities.
“Without fail, every time I deliver a program in a school I’m swamped by teachers saying they thought I was talking about their tearoom.
“Adults are also seeking friendship information and advice on how to support the wellbeing of their children. We’ve now got policymakers concerned about loneliness and ministers for loneliness in countries like the United Kingdom and Japan. Relationship skills are at the core of political alliances and the negotiations we are seeing right now on the global stage.”
Moves within Australia to confront the crisis saw Dr Kaspar and several UNE colleagues make a submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry into the Prevalence, Causes and Impacts of Loneliness in NSW in October 2024, sharing valuable rural perspectives.
“This work is inspired by the many young people I’ve seen in practice over the past 20 years and by the importance of healthy relationships and connection,” Dr Kaspar says. “I often think of friendships as a kind of social medicine. They can help young people feel that they truly belong and matter.”
