Recent research suggests people want to get back in touch with old friends, but are worried about being a bother.
“Although people seem to be generally interested in the idea of reconnecting, they don’t want to be the one to do it,” said Lara Aknin, Director of the Helping and Happiness Lab at Simon Fraser University.
Aknin was the lead author on research published on the topic in Communications Psychology.
“People were less concerned about any potential losses on their side. They weren’t so worried about them forfeiting time or them not having the opportunity, but it was really about kind of being concerned about being an imposition on someone else’s life after all this time,” she said.
According to Aknin, people who did reach out to old connections were generally happy about having done it.
She also suggests that more generally, research suggests that people get happiness both from being with, and helping people.
“If I had to summarize a lot of the research on happiness, it’s just that happiness comes from other people by and large.”
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