Happy New Year: Friends Forever?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve found I’m happiest when surrounded by friends. From my early childhood, all the way to adulthood, I spent a lot of time with friends and placed a huge amount of importance on friendships. Throughout my school years, I mostly picked my subjects and activities based on what my friends did - whether it was quizzing, or choosing computer science as the added elective in the 11th-grade (or initially preferring “engineering drawing”) and of course, the sports I played (well, you do need friends to play with after all). This carried on to college, where, while everyone was worried about their grades and career, my plan - just like before - was simply to do what my friends were doing. People were aiming for jobs with top companies while I honestly was aiming to land in the same city as my friends (that didn’t happen, but I made some new ones). And then came independent adult life, where I decided to move out west partly because none of my friends were in the same city as I was anymore. Honestly, I hit “hard relate” when I saw this kid’s answer here.

The pandemic - while obviously awful - felt like it connected me virtually to many, many people. Everyone was up for a game, everyone was up to chat. And then, very quickly, it ended? Or changed? Life - as it does - turns on a whim and people started building lives of their own. People bought houses, which meant they moved away to the suburbs. People started aiming for promotions and pouring more of themselves into work. People got married and spent time getting to know their spouses better or experiencing more of life together. I’m not saying any of this is wrong (not in the least) but it was a change and a change that, over time, got more difficult. Anyhow, in March of this year, one of the reasons my wife and I decided we’d move further east to be closer to friends and see if reducing that distance would help at all.

And I’m glad to say, 2025 was a great year for friendships :) I met some friends after years apart (longest gap since our last meeting was around 13 years, but there were others at 12, 8, 7 and more). I met some friends I’ve seen every year (longest stretch is probably 16 consecutive years). I reconnected with some friends online and some in person and became closer with some friends as well. I also got to celebrate & support friends going through new life changes (becoming parents, getting married, etc.). And I had friends support me through my life changes (trying stand-up comedy). And last but not least, I got to make some new friends! Friends are the best.

Interestingly, one of the streamers I like to watch (“Big A”) centered his Christmas video on this study that Veritasium also covered on what makes humans happy. And turns out, it’s simple: it’s the strength of your social relationships.

While some connections have gotten stronger, others might be taking a hit. Over the last few years, I’ve realized the devastating impact social media has had on life. Back in the 2010s, when I read about Facebook enabling the Myanmar genocide and so on, I thought that was a jump too far. However, now I’m not so sure, and specifically due to the impact on some of our relations. I’ve heard from too many friends about how their parents or older relatives are gradually becoming more radicalized/extremist. Honestly, it’s hard to place the blame entirely on individuals if this is a change happening so broadly. As a software engineer, it’s clear where at least part of the blame lies. When we split out users into cohorts and run tests, micro-optimizing for the short-term goal of attention instead of the long-term goal of goodwill (however you define it), it becomes difficult to deny the obvious. Over the years, chronological feeds gave way to algorithmic - or as we should call them, “company-generated” - feeds. In the last couple of years, videos gave way to shorts. Synthetic dopamine is now available on tap and we’re in a weird situation where this drug is being peddled to those not familiar with how technology companies work behind the scenes. In short: They will show you what you want to be shown. Truth be damned and morality be damned as long as it keeps you using the app. The dollar rules all.

When I was in school, my parents would occasionally (~50% of the time) ask me, “Will I really get hacked if I don’t forward this to ten people?” but now, for 99% of cases, they don’t. There’s no need to fact-check something if you get to read what you want to hear, is there? Regardless of age, we would all fall into that hole. And, sadly, frustratingly, in the process, relations slowly erode away.

For 2026, I plan to write about a bunch of things, and do a bunch of things, but I’ve always been better at the planning than the executing. That’s partly because there is so much to do, and partly because the dopamine is derived from the planning. This includes a series teaching languages, teaching artificial intelligence (from the basics all the way to LLMs), and some “advice”/thoughts on what to do with life and how to be a force for good (relevant to the previous paragraph).

May your connections be strong and your happiness be maxed out!

Happy new year!