Centre for Policy on Ageing



Keeping the ball in the air — contact in long-distance friendships
Author(s)	Tanya D Finchum
Journal title	Journal of Women & Aging, vol 17, no 3, 2005
Pages	pp 91-106
Source	http://www.tandfonline.com
Keywords	Older women ; Friendship ; Social contacts ; Geographical distance ; House removal ; Pilot ; United States of America.
Annotation	As people continue to be more mobile, maintenance behaviours for long-distance friendships will continue to be a part of the relocation experience. In this qualitative study, 25 women aged 45+ who had relocated a number of times were asked to talk about how their friendships had changed to being long-distance relationships and what their friendship maintenance behaviours entailed. Communication was a major theme involving electronic mail, Christmas cards, telephone calls and visits. Results from the current study suggest that maintaining the perception of the existence of a well-connected social support system could be accomplished with a single, annual contact. Further, the long distance friendship biographies explored in this study provided characteristics of friendship maintenance behaviour that could be grouped into three main categories forming a proposed typology of long distance friendship maintenance. (KJ/RH).
Accession Number	CPA-060913206 A
Classmark	BD: DS:SX: TOA: RJ: TNH: 4UC: 7T
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.