Five years ago, he scraped his knee on the turf playing soccer with his friends.
Five years ago, he limped across the field, his friends acting as makeshift crutches for his arms.
Five years ago, they were inseparable.
It’s now been five years since he’s last seen them in person.

Switching schools is never easy for students — for sophomore Rahul Subramaniam, this process meant completely starting over. When Subramaniam joined St. Mark’s in 10th grade, he had to find his place in an already tight-knit community.
“It wasn’t easy,” Subramaniam said. “I still have to introduce myself to everybody, so I’m going around, figuring out stuff like, ‘who has shared interests with me?’”
But Subramaniam didn’t abandon his old friendships. Previously attending a public school in Frisco, Centennial High School, Subramaniam’s friends all live relatively close to his house, enabling him to stay in touch with them despite the switch.
In addition, Subramaniam believes that his cell phone plays a major role in maintaining the connections with his companions. For him, social media serves as a convenient medium through which he can keep in contact virtually.
“If I didn’t have my phone, I wouldn’t have been able to keep in touch with them,” Subramaniam said. “I don’t see them at my school now, so the only ways I can talk to them are either by going to their house or texting them through Snapchat, Instagram and Messages.”
These apps can also serve as a way of communicating in newly created friendships, not just for maintaining old ones. For junior Michael Yang, meeting people through extracurricular activities has always been a way to forge new friendships.
But similar to Subramaniam, keeping these relationships alive has been difficult without regular occurrences of in-person communication, which is where social media helps ease this burden of trying to stay connected.
The benefits of social media also extend beyond out-of-school friendships. From Yang’s experience, this medium fosters deeper connections between his friends who are invovled in the same communities.
“Social media strengthens in-school friendships by letting people connect while off campus,” Yang said. “From what I can tell, posts from larger accounts like the SuperFanMen on Instagram also help create a stronger school community, and therefore build a tighter bond between friends.”
While social media is a significant building block for many friendships both on and off campus, its usefulness is minimal for some students.
Junior Benjamin Standefer prefers to avoid social media as much as he can, but this choice hasn’t hindered his ability to make friends beyond the confines of campus.
“The main way I’ve connected with people outside of St Mark’s is through extracurriculars and involvement,” Standefer said. “This includes community service, events and organizations outside of St Mark’s focused on community outreach. A lot of times they are collaborative efforts with Hockaday, ESD, Jesuit or other private schools in the area.”
By being involved in these communal events, Standefer believes that he does not need to rely on social media to keep those bonds. Seeing his friends on a regular basis in-person makes maintaining friendships easier for Standefer, but these connections still require dedication.
“Outside relationships sometimes require a little more effort,” Standefer said. “Again, it helps if there’s some rhythm to the relationship where I’ll see the person regularly, but sometimes on weekends, it never hurts to just go out for food with some friends or do something fun once in a while.”