Re-discover the importance of meeting face to face

Weekends are usually the perfect opportunity to reconnect with family and friends but how many times do you feel that you have too much to do and too little time to fit them in? And do you ever just rely on communicating with them via Facebook, email or twitter?

Well if you got to the end of the weekend feeling guilty about how little time you have spent in the presence of friends and family then you’re not alone with research released today revealing almost all of us are unhappy with the amount of ‘real’ time spent with the people in our lives.

Catching up with friends to put the world to rights, or simply find out how their day has been, just isn’t as common or as easy as it used to be. Time is scarce and social networking and phone calls are increasingly replacing face to face interaction.

While the technological revolution was meant to give us more free time to allow us to socialise, a quarter of people worry their social lives are becoming more and more dependent on the technology we’re meant to use to facilitate it.

According to the research conducted by the Future Laboratory, on behalf of Nescafe Gold Blend, while three in five of us prefer meeting in person, often these occasions only come about after being set up online.

So if we used technology in the right way could we actually re-forge and re-develop our relationships? Do words exchanged in cyberspace really make up for face to face emotion and what could we be missing out on if we’re not meeting face to face?

To help us make the most of our friendships and relationships, Peter Collett, psychologist and co-founder of the consultancy Brand Affinity has put together the following top tips:-

How to strengthen your friendships. Peter Collett’s top tips:

1. Take the initiative – catch up over coffee. There’s no point waiting for your friends to contact you. It’s good to be proactive so don’t procrastinate when it comes to your pals – pick up the phone or text them to suggest a meeting or even better pop round when you can for a quick ‘catch up over coffee’. Catch ups do not need to take the whole night so a quickie is better than nothing.

2. Stay Connected. Any contact is better than none so if you find sometimes that you lack time to meet up with your friends then still try to keep them in the loop using the many other methods of communications such as a text message or a post via the social networking site that you both favour. It will show them that they’re never far from your thoughts and once you have more free time a face to face meeting is the best way to really catch up on what you have both been up to.

3. Spark something special. Relationships that involve the same routine can be tremendous, but they can never beat those that are constantly being revitalised by novelty. Try to continually put that spark into your friendships by doing new and unusual things together – going to different places and enjoying new experiences. That way you’ll keep your relationships fresh.

For more information visit: nescafe.co.uk