Online friends can be real friends. Just make sure at least one person can see your face when you’re having a bad day.

A friendship made online is not a lesser kind. People you have never stood next to can know you well, sometimes better than the ones who sit near you at school, because the conversation went straight to what you both care about. What text cannot do is notice. Nobody reading your messages can see that you have not eaten or that you have been crying.

Keep the online people and add one who can see your face: a friend, a cousin, a teacher, a neighbour. Someone who will clock the bad day without being told. A call with the camera on counts if distance makes it necessary.