Why We Need Intergenerational Friendships Share Photo: De Visu, Shutterstock When you’re in elementary school, having friends from a different grade can be an indicator of your social status. Hanging around with kids in the grade below yours might be seen as a negative, but if you manage to get in with the older kids, you must be doing something right. Interesting, considering that either way, we’re only talking about an age difference of a year or two. As adults, it seems strange to limit our social circles to people born within a few years of us. In fact, most of us probably have become friends with people from completely different generations — and that’s a good thing, according to several studies. Here are some of the benefits of intergenerational friendships, and why you work on forming some of your own (if you haven’t already).