Up until recently we defined a friend as someone who was with you through thick and thin and with whom you shared just about everything. You called them after a breakup and celebrated with them after a promising interview for your dream job.

Nowadays, anyone can be referred to as your friend, and in an increasingly online world where you may have 1000’s of ‘friends’ on your socials or in a virtual game setting, most of whom you have never met physically, the definition of friendship has become broader and increasingly vague.

A friend isn’t necessarily someone you really know and see as a confidant. Instead, a friend can be any casual acquaintance, a person you’ve only met in passing. And, in the case of gamers, a friend can be a voice you know with a face you’ve never actually seen.

The caveat here is that recent research shows that there is a 50% increase in subjective well-being from having IRL (in real life) friendships and the percentage increases as we spend more time physically together, and as those relationships deepen.