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The Half-Life of a Friendship | Param Davda

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Every year, millions of incoming first-years leave their hometowns behind. Recently, Instagram or even LinkedIn has made it easier (and more annoying) to hear about and speak with people you don’t meet everyday. But do we really stay in touch? Before we begin, much of what you’re about to read will make me sound like (a) a mad scientist (b) someone who does not know to make friends or (c) both. Statistically analysing how a friendship fades is pretty dystopian, but loads of (really smart) people have made careers out of studying how people interact, form relationships and grow. TL;DR - this is math, not social advice. With that cheerful introduction out of the way, we can start with some axioms. TL;DR - Everyone you meet gets a number for how close you are, not talking depletes friendships, talking = interactions, and interactions are random. Every friendship can be ascribed a continuous time-varying degree of closeness. As time passes, we get closer to some people but further from oth

why staying in touch is brutal (statistically) preface # Every year, millions of incoming first-years leave their hometowns behind. Recently, Instagram or even LinkedIn has made it easier (and more annoying) to hear about and speak with people you don’t meet everyday. But do we really stay in touch? Before we begin, much of what you’re about to read will make me sound like (a) a mad scientist (b) someone who does not know to make friends or (c) both. Statistically analysing how a friendship fades is pretty dystopian, but loads of (really smart) people have made careers out of studying how peop

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