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Report on Best Friends Tell All
Smart girls decide for themselves™.
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Best friends are one of life's greatest treasures! Sometimes it takes people years to truly find a best friend with whom they can confide and trust. It is very normal for people to change their best friends many times throughout their lives, sometimes this can be a source of great loss and pain as well as excitement about new friendships. We know that friendships are a huge part of growing up and we wanted to see how you felt about your relationships and what you truly felt about your best friends!
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763 people responded to our survey about Best friends last month, most of which were girls with a whopping 740 responses. Just 23 boys answered the survey but that is great because we love to hear what everyone thinks and feels about their friends. One of the most fun things about these surveys is that we receive a wide variety of responses from people of all different ethnic backgrounds and this survey was no different! We had many many responses from people of European background, African background, Asian background, Latin background, Middle Eastern background, North American Background, Pacific background, multi-background and more!
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We thought we would start out by asking the basic question, do you have a best friend and if so, how many? We know that many of you feel like you are the only person in the world without a best friend, but don't fear it is actually quite common to not have one specific best friend.
~ 32 people said they have no best friend
~ 104 people said they have one best friend
~ 275 people said they had a group of 2 or 3 best friends
~ 304 people said they had a group of 4 best friends
~ 51 people said that everyone is their best friend
Next we wondered if your best friends were girls or boys; most of you said that you were friends with both boys and girls with 373 responses. 348 of you said that you were just best friends with girls, and 18 of you said that your best friend is a boy. Don't worry if the math doesn't add up right, we had 26 people that didn't respond and then the others who said they didn't feel like they had a best friend.
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| Who is your best friend? |
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The world seems like a pretty big place sometimes, so we were curious to find out how you met your very closest friends. Was it by chance? Were you introduced? Who introduced you? Here's how you met your best friends!
In school ~ 673 responses
Some out of school activity ~ 269 responses
Same neighborhood ~ 225 responses
Through parents ~ 102 responses
On vacation ~ 51 responses
Through other friends ~ 15 responses
Camp ~ 4 responses
None ~ 36 responses
How old were you when you met each other?
3-6 years old: 249 responses
7-10 years old: 227 responses
11-14 years old: 239 responses
15-18 years old: 36 responses
18+: 7 responses
None: 23 responses
How much time (outside of school of course) do you spend with your best friend(s)?
~ Every day: 202 responses
~ 2-3 times per week: 305 responses
~ 2-3 times per month: 134 responses
~ 2-3 times per year: 20 responses
~ Hardly ever: 69 responses
~ None: 28 responses
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~ Stronly agree: 96
~ Agree: 129
~ Neutral: 269
~ Disagree: 140
~ Strongly disagree: 49
Sometimes best friends are the ones who are able to hurt us the most. Typically best friends are not bullies, but sometimes they sure can seem like it. We wondered how many of you wished at times that your best friend was nicer to you, or respected you more, and here's what the SmartGirls had to say:
I wish my friends were nicer to me and respected me more:
~ Strongly agree: 122
~ Agree: 132
~ Neutral: 192
~ Disagree: 125
~ Strongly disagree: 91
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| I wish my best friend was nicer to me... |
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Sometimes the crowd we hang with tends to affect the way we behave. Our question to you was, are your friends a positive influence on you? Most of you said yes your friends have a very positive influence on you (258 responses), while some of you (186 responses) said that your friends are somewhat of a positive influence on you. 285 of you admitted that sometimes your friends are good influences but at other times they can affect you in negative ways. Just 8 people said that their friends or group of friends were sometimes a negative influence and 3 people said their friends have a very negative influence over their attitudes and behaviors.
Reversed around, we wondered what type of influences you felt you had on your friends. Fortunately most of you (254 responses) said that you feel that you are a positive influence on your friends, or at least sometimes positive (229 responses). 236 people admitted to being both a positive and negative influence on their friends while just 19 of you said that you are somewhat a negative influence. We here at SmartGirl were happy to hear that only 4 people, of 763 total responses said that they have a very negative influence on their friends.
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| How do you describe your group of friends? |
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~ Hang out at each other's houses: 629
~ Go to the movies: 481
~ Go to the mall: 434
~ Play sports: 324
~ Do homework: 260
~ Volunteer: 93
~ Go to events: 48
~ Hang out:36
~ Talk: 19
~ Eat food: 7
~ Other: 17
Do you see your best friend as being like yourself?
~ Yes, exactly the same: 124
~ Somewhat the same: 455
~ Not much alike: 108
~ No, we are opposites: 67
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~ More than 5: 198 responses
~ 3-4: 144 responses
~ 1-2: 240 responses
~ none: 12 responses
When your best friend tells you a secret, we wondered what you were mostly likely to do. Sometimes it is hard to keep that secret to yourself, but friendships are meant to be based on trust. Here's what you had to say about keeping your friend's secrets, a secret!
How often do you tell?
~ Never! 363
~ Rarely: 275
~ Sometimes I tell others: 63
~ Usually I tell others: 20
~ I always tell: 14
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| How often do you tell their secrets? |
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One of the roles of a best friend is to be there for you when you need them, whether it is when you received a bad test grade, a family member died or you are just feeling a little blue. A lot of times we are timid to share our concerns with friends who we don't consider to be our best friends, perhaps because of trust issues or maybe just because you aren't that close. One of the best qualities about a best friend is their concern when you are struggling. We wondered when you were in a time of needing your best friend, was he or she there for you?
~ Always: 390
~ Usually: 247
~ Sometimes: 76
~ Rarely: 9
~ Never: 3
On the other hand, something that is very hard on friendships are issues regarding trust and telling the truth. We wanted to know how often you have lied to your best friends in the past?
~ Many times: 70
~ Often: 39
~ Sometimes: 416
~ Never: 234
Relating to the question above about your friends respecting you and treating you kindly, we asked the question that in general how do your friends make you feel when you are around them? Here's what you said:
~ Good: 499
~ Average: 204
~ Not good: 10
~ Horrible: 6
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Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts
with us!
Please remember that all web-based polls
are not scientific because the pollsters cannot randomly select the
respondents to participate in the surveys.
All our surveys are anonymous; check out our privacy
policy. All data copyright 1996-2000.
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