Labelling difficult friendships as ‘toxic’ could be doing be more harm than good, despite its increasing popularity in modern culture, sociologists warn.
While ‘toxic friendships’ are having a cultural moment with everything from self-help quizzes to the Sex and the City series, university sociologists caution that labelling difficult friendships as ‘toxic’ – and following popular advice to cut off so-called friends – is overly simplistic and potentially harmful.
In new research published in the Families, Relationships and Societies journal, the sociologists argue that popular discourse around this trend shows friendships aren’t given the same allowances for difficulties as other types of relationships.
They cite the rise of the term toxic to describe anything slightly negative, and the prescribed solution to dealing with so-called toxic friends as ending the relationship, as overly simplistic – even neoliberal capitalist.
Their findings follow an analysis of 150 digital articles, quizzes and lists on how to identify, and the dangers of, a toxic friend. The popular ‘toxic’ was found to be a catch-all term for anything negative or problematic, alongside checklists and guidelines urging readers to identify friendships as such, convincing them of the suffering they’re enduring as a result, and leading them to sever the relationship.
Dr Jenny van Hooff, Reader at Manchester Metropolitan University and co-author of Is My Best Friend Toxic? A Textual Analysis of Online Advice on Difficult Relationships, with Dr Kinneret Lahad of Tel Aviv University, said: “The toxic friendship formula to label and cut off toxic friends is all around us on the internet.
“While it’s positive to see a focus on friendship, the widespread use of ‘toxic’ to describe any behaviour that’s even slightly negative, is concerning.
“The online articles we analysed often reduced the concept of challenging friendships to a three-minute read, with the simple solution being to cut off that ‘toxic friend’.
“Whereas we might tolerate difficult behaviours in couple or family relationships, this dubious formula doesn’t give the same kind of space or nuance to friendships, which can be equally complex and just as important.
“Tricky patches in a friendship are common and normal, and the instruction to heedlessly cut off friends is unhelpful and, we believe, reflects neoliberalist constructions of self-care, which puts the individual before anyone else.”
The solution to friendship woes, suggests Dr van Hooff, is acceptance, and possibly even specialist third-party support. She added: “We need to accept the ambivalence of friendships and expect difficulties if they have any kind of substance to them.
“For many people, friends are emotional anchors, not just disposable ties that serve us. We have therapy for couples, and I see no reason why friendship counselling can’t be considered as a mechanism to preserve such important relationships in our lives.”
Read the report, Is My Best Friend Toxic? A Textual Analysis of Online Advice on Difficult Relationships by Manchester Metropolitan University’s Dr Jenny Van Hooff and Tel Aviv University’s Dr Kinneret Lahad, here.
