(Update 2026) Describe a Friend from Your Childhood

Well, I would say I still keep in touch with only a few childhood friends, probably just one or two, because they were the people I was closest during my school years. Even though we live in different cities and lead completely different lives, we still stay connected by sending messages on birthdays or during festivals.
I think maintaining a good friendship requires time and effort, but for meaningful relationships, it’s definitely worthwhile. However, when it comes to most of my childhood friends, the answer is probably no. As people grow older, they naturally move in different directions in life. Some focus on their careers while others build new social circles in new environments. Even though social media makes communication much easier nowadays, sometimes there simply isn’t much left to talk about. I don’t think friendships should be forced if both people have gradually drifted apart.

I would say that childhood friendship is really important. One reason could be that, without childhood friendship, a lot of kids would feel lonely. Since most kids, they would want a friend, preferably their age, to grow up with or to explore the world with. And without someone like that, it is very likely that kids would feel left out. And this type of loneliness might even have negative impact on their mental health.
On top of that, I feel this type of childhood friendship tend to last for a very long time. For example, a lot of adults, their childhood best friend continues to be their adult best friend. And even when we’re not as close as before, most of us would still keep in contact with a lot of our friends from our past. So I guess from this, you could tell that for most people, childhood friendship is quite invaluable.

Well, I guess it has some pros and cons.
As for the benefits, I think it can definitely maybe shorten the distance between people when they socialize with each other. To be more specific, it can help people to communicate with others anytime, anywhere. By using the, like, WeChat or Facebook, Twitter, this kind of social media, you can connect with people almost anytime you want. Even if your friend is in another country, you can still have a video chat or talk to them. You don’t have to fly to the city or the country to talk to this person face-to-face.

But as for the disadvantages, I think maybe sometimes it maybe will make people feel a little bit distant, to be honest. Because you only can talk to the people through the social media, it will reduce your possibility of meeting the person face-to-face, even with your family members or friends. So you always just send an emoji or send a text message to your parents or your friends instead of just see them face-to-face, give them a hug, give them a kiss. So I think this maybe will be a problem.

Well, to be honest, I think that maybe social media will replace some of the face-to-face communication, but not all of it. I have to admit that social media has its own advantages.
Like I said before, it is very convenient. It can help you save money and save time. You don’t have to travel to other places. It even can protect the environment. But it cannot completely replace the face-to-face communication. Because when you have the face-to-face communication, you can have more physical contact with the person you are talking to. For example, if you are talking to your wife or boyfriend or girlfriend, I think you know the difference between having a video call all the time for one year and meeting the person in person. So it can definitely boost and increase the relationship between you and your friend. Some people live far away from each other just by social media contacts. Sometimes it’s easy for them to break their relationship. So that’s why you can see it’s hard for the lovers to maintain their relationship in two different cities.

Well, I guess there are several distinctions between these two.
As for the younger friends, maybe they are more energetic and they are passionate about some new stuff. It’s easy for younger people to accept the new ideas. So maybe I can play some activities that need more energy. For example, like bungee jumping, rock climbing, this kind of sports. And also they can tell me some latest technology developments and also the products.

But I think as for the elder friends, I think the difference is that maybe they can offer more life experience and philosophy with me because they have more experience in life. If I encounter some difficulties, maybe in my work or my study, maybe they can give me some ideas like my teacher or parents. But they can have more resources also to help me compare with the younger friends. So I think that’s the difference.

Well, I think maybe it has a great change on the human being’s relationship with other people, especially friendship.

Firstly, maybe it will help people to easily connect with other people. In the past, we can only make friends in the reality, like you can meet people at the party or something like that. Nowadays, by using some social apps, you can easily hook up with people from different areas, like maybe even from foreign countries. So it’s definitely a good way for people to have more opportunities to meet people who are like-minded.
But another thing I should say is that even people can develop a relationship with a machine like the AI. This is a new trend. In the past, it was unthinkable. People only made friends with real people, but nowadays there are some applications that can offer people the opportunity to develop a relationship with the AI chatbot. So you can talk to them and they will actually care about you, talk to you all the time, just play the role of your best friend or even your lover. So I think that’s a huge difference.