How Seniors Can Make Friends in the Digital Age

There are a lot of ways to find new friends online.

Making new friends as an adult is difficult. Finding friends online can feel even more challenging. However, the web offers a lot of opportunities to meet like-minded people. Seniors can make friends on a variety of platforms as there are groups and networks for almost every hobby and passion.

In 2005, when social media was in its infancy, only 5% of internet users were on any platform. By 2019, 70% of users had an online presence on at least one social media platform. Seventy percent of adults age 50-64 and 50% of adults age 65 and older use Facebook as their main app. Using Facebook as the model, here are a few tips to finding new friends.

Seek Out Friends with Similar Interests

There is a group for nearly every interest, hobby, passion, and activity on Facebook. A simple search will find plenty of groups concerning cooking, hiking, knitting, volunteering, traveling, etc. Whether a group is public or private, all you need to do is press the Join button to find a new community. You can enjoy commenting, questioning, and posting photos in the group and gain a whole community of people of various ages who will like your posts, answers, and comments.

You can also join your local community’s Facebook group. By searching your zip code or town name on Facebook, you can join your town’s group. On that page, people will post about local events you may have never known about. There are sure to be festivals and holiday celebrations in all four seasons that may interest you.

Seniors may make friends who enjoy going on a nature walk or hiking an easy trail.

Make Plans to Meet Up IRL (In Real Life)

Though it can be a little scary to meet internet strangers in real life, the best friendships are sustained through in-person meet-ups from time to time. Your pre-meet nerves can be calmed by talking on the phone or (even better) having a video chat with your new friend so that you can be sure their photo is really them.

At this stage in the pandemic, everyone may feel “Zoomed-Out” — tired of online chats. However, these video calls are greats ways to feel better about getting to know someone in person. After you make plans to meet at a public place, such as a coffee shop or diner, your friendship can deepen since you can get a better understanding of who a person is by being in their presence.

If you found your new friend in a specialized group, such as one for nature lovers, make plans to meet at a hobby-specific place, like your local garden center. There you can bond over your shared love of plants. If you met in a cooking group, you can schedule a day to wander around a gourmet cooking store like Sur La Table or Williams Sonoma. Having shared experiences are a great way to begin your new friendships.

Laughter shared with friends makes life a lot more joyful and fulfilling.

Keep the Friendship Growing

Seniors can make friends in a variety of ways online, but after meeting in real life, there is still work to be done to maintain the friendship. You have to reach out to them and then keep reaching out to help the friendship to grow.

After your initial meeting, make sure to make concrete plans for your next hang out before saying goodbye. By putting plans in place (adding them to your phone calendar while doing it is even better), you and your new friend agree to make time for each other and the new relationship.

Everyone feels lonely sometimes, especially after the two years we’ve just survived. Putting yourself out there to make new friends can feel very scary, but the reward of fulfilling relationships is well worth the risk. You can take a small step today by doing the search on Facebook for your town’s group. Once you’ve joined, you can make a post that greets everyone, shares a snippet about yourself, and invites others to comment or message you if they’re interested in meeting up for coffee or breakfast. There’s definitely someone else in your town who’d love to have a new friend just as much as you’d love to be one.