The Paradox Of Modern Friendships

How often do you see your friends? Do you find yourself trying to make plans, spending time synchronizing your calendars just to scratch together a few hours a week? Do you feel more isolated from the people you used to spend so much time with? If so, then you are not alone (ironically) – the world is currently experiencing a “ loneliness epidemic” which can have serious impacts on both mental and physical health.

However, according to new research, the situation is not as simple as people being friendless hermits. Rather, it seems Americans have more friends than in the past, they just don’t get to see one another as much.

The “loneliness epidemic” has become increasingly worrying in recent years. In 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared loneliness to be a threat to health across the world. It’s a particularly pernicious problem as its impacts are often underappreciated; loneliness can affect anyone at any age and is known to impact people’s mental health and sense of well-being. It can also increase the risk of mortality .

This is why the bonds of friendship are so significant. The number and quality of a person’s friendships is a significant predictor of happiness and life satisfaction. Friends are a major source of social support, and having high-quality friendships can even compensate for lower-quality family and romantic relationships.

But is friendship under threat? Recent reports suggest American friendships are struggling, that both young and older adults are increasingly lonely . Americans, as with people in other countries, are apparently spending more time alone and less time being social . But does this mean people have fewer friends than they had in the past?

In a recent study, Natalie Pennington, Assistant Professor at Colorado State University, and colleagues published a report of three surveys from the American Friendship Project (AFP), which seeks to establish the most accurate and complete account of American friendships.

The AFP results cover five critical facets of social health as it relates to friendships. These include how people’s friendships are structured (e.g. who are they, how many people?); their quality (e.g., satisfaction, closeness); whether they receive social support from friends; the quantity of online and offline communications; and the respondent’s overall well-being (e.g., their life satisfaction, loneliness, connection).

The data was collected from two national samples of American adults taken in 2022 and 2023, and from a large sample of college students in 2022.

Their surveys showed that Americans reported having around four to five friends on average, which is very similar to the number of friends estimated for past decades, from the 1970s to 2015.

However, the researchers admit that respondents may have more friends but their ability to express this was limited by the nature of the survey.

“These results suggest that four to five friends may well be an undercount of Americans’ total number of friends. In other words, had respondents been given the option of listing more friends than a limit of seven, they would likely do so”, the team explain in their study.

The team also found that fewer than 3 percent of respondents reported having no friends, which is also consistent with past estimates for both adolescents and adults.

“Over 40 years, across a broad range of surveys and methods for counting, less than 5 [percent] of Americans report having no friends. The results of the AFP survey suggest recent concerns shared in the public sphere about rising rates of friendlessness may be overstated and could be an artifact of data collection methods, data management, participant burden, and/or response options.”

According to the results, most of the respondents were satisfied with the number of friends they had, but many felt they wanted greater emotional connections and to spend more time with their friends.

“Over 40 [percent] felt they were not as close to their friends as they would like, and less than half felt that they were satisfied with the amount of time they had with friends. Surprisingly, this was true for college students and adults alike,” the team write.

Interestingly, the surveys also revealed what Americans believe constitutes a “friend”. In this context, other relationships tend to overlap. For instance, respondents often listed siblings, parents, children, and other relatives as “friends”; the same was true for their romantic partners as well.

Previous research has often forbidden participants from listing romantic partners and family members as friends, which may depress the number of friends counted but also miss an important companionate relationship that extends beyond kinship.

Similarly, past research has focused on “close” and “best” friends, but the evidence from other research has shown that casual friends can also play an important role in supporting our health and well-being. The results from the AFP surveys indicate that this category should not be overlooked in future work.

Overall, the report adds greater detail to our understanding of friendships and their significance. It seems that although we are still able to form friendships with many people, the nature and quality of those connections may be less meaningful than many of us would like.

The study is published in PLOS ONE .