Being socially engaged in college can finally pay off as a new study has revealed that your social life in college could predict your well-being later in life.
Cheryl Carmichael, who conducted the research at the University of Rochester said that the quantity of social interactions a person has at the age of 20 and the quality of social relationships that person has at age 30 could benefit their well-being in life.
She stated that people with poor social connections have been shown to be at an increased risk for early mortality. In addition to that, having few social connections was equivalent to tobacco use, and it’s higher than for those who drink excessive amounts of alcohol, or who suffer from obesity.
The study shows that having a high number of social interactions at age 30 has no psychosocial benefits later on, said Carmichael.
Carmichael contacted individuals who, as 20-year old college students in the 1970s for the study, and again ten years later, participated in the Rochester-Interaction Record (RIR) study.
The RIR was the first so-called “diary” technique used to examine social activity as it occurs spontaneously in everyday life. Diary methods, developed at the University and elsewhere, are now used widely to study social behavior.
