Long-Lasting Friendships 273from a friend (perception that the friend is supportive of their autonomous actions,
perspective, and choices) is predictive of happiness, Demir and colleagues found
that this association is fully mediated by use of friendship maintenance behaviors.
They argue that perceiving one’s friend as supportive of their autonomy is associ-
ated with increased engagement of friendship maintenance behaviors to maintain
the supportive bond, which in turn contributes to overall happiness.
Together these lines of research suggest interesting implications for friendship
maintenance behaviors. Not only does engaging in maintenance behaviors support
continuation of a satisfying friendship but also it appears to be part of a broader
set of relationship behaviors that help people to resolve relationship conflicts,
strengthen friendships that provide autonomy support, and contribute ultimately
to a satisfying life and happiness.
Maintaining Friends With Modern Technology
With the development of technology, friends now have a variety of mediums in
which they can maintain friendships, even if not in immediate proximity. Online
social networking sites are frequently highlighted as being used to maintain long-
distance friendships as they allow for frequent “online” interactions and commu-
nications (such as instant messaging and active communication exchanges) as well
as the ability to stay informed of friends’ lives and activities by sharing information
via more passive information exchanges such as viewing posts and photos. Given
the popularity of online social networking and other computer- mediated com-
munication (CMC) options, it is not surprising that they are becoming an increas-
ingly important part of friendships (see chapter 6, “Friendship and Social Media,”
for a more thorough discussion) with an increasing number of people reporting
that they use CMC to maintain current friendships (e.g., Craig & Wright, 2012;
McEwan, 2013) and to escalate the friendships to more intimate levels (e.g., Sosik &
Bazarova, 2014).
In an examination of friendship- maintenance strategies specific to Facebook, it
was found that people use Facebook to maintain the relationship via “sharing” (self-
disclosure by sharing news, updating one’s profile, and commenting on a friend’s
profile, etc.) behaviors and “caring” (indicating care and interaction with the friend
by posting special notes on friend’s wall, offering support following bad news,
congratulating a friend on good news posted, posting photos to share experiences
with friends, etc.; McEwan, 2013). Facebook also allows people to passively follow
their friends’ lives via “surveillance” of the friend’s posts and sharing pictures. In
McEwan’s study of 112 young adult friendship dyads, both of the friends’ engaging
in the maintenance behaviors that were classified as “caring” were positively corre-
lated with own and friend’s report of friendship satisfaction, liking of the friend, and
perceived closeness. Similarly, using Facebook as a method of “surveillance” was
positively associated with friendship satisfaction, liking, and closeness. However,