Scientists say they've pinpointed¹ the time in our lives when we start losing friends, rather than making new ones, by looking at the phone data of some 3.2 million Europeans. It looks like 25 is the watershed² age for making new relationships.

科学家们研究了欧洲320万人的手机数据，称已能确定人们是从生命中的哪一刻开始失去友人、而非去结交新朋友。似乎25岁起是结交新朋友的分水岭。

While this isn't a precise measurement of friendships, it does suggest that this is the stage in life when our social circles are at their largest, say researchers from the Aalto University School of Science in Finland and the University of Oxford³ in the UK.

尽管这并不能精确衡量友谊，却也的确表明，在人生这一阶段我们的社交圈是最庞大的，芬兰阿尔托大学和英国牛津大学的研究者如是说。

From then on, we start losing contact with people, as children and careers start to put pressure on our time. We begin dropping friends for the rest of our lives, although there is a small plateau at the age of 45 to 55 years old.

自此，我们便与人开始失去联系，因为孩子和事业让我们时间紧迫。接下来的人生阶段，我们不断失去朋友，尽管到45至55岁会有这一趋势会短时间暂缓。

Interestingly, at younger ages, men have more friends than women, but from the age of 39 upwards⁴, that trend is reversed.

有意思的是，年轻时，男性的朋友数多于女性，但自39岁起，这一趋势发生逆转。

The researchers suggest that it's possible that women may interact with their own close family members more than men do, for the purposes of things like keeping other family members updated on children's activities.

专家指出，可能女性与其家庭成员往来更密切，因为要及时了解交流孩子们的近况。

The research serves as a reminder⁵ that all the modern tech we use to keep in touch with our friends and family has another. It's giving researchers a vast treasure trove⁶ of data to study. Females tend to have a close-knit pack of girlfriends, whereas males have a gang of guys to hang out with.

研究提醒我们，现代科技使得我们和亲朋好友联系更密切；研究也提供了珍贵的数据资料。女性似乎有一群关系要好的闺蜜，而男性则有一帮一起玩的伙伴。

The researchers say the differences between cultures will probably lie in the timing⁷ of peaks and transitions, rather than in the overall patterns themselves.

研究人员称，不同文化间的差异基本在于友人人数达到巅峰的时段和转折点，而非其整体模式有变化。