Where Have All Our Friends Gone? NewsWire

NewsWire: 7/1/21

• According to a new study on friendship, Americans report having fewer close friends than they did 30 years ago. They’re also less likely to say they have one person they consider their best friend. (Survey Center on American Life)
• NH: This is an interesting study that touches on several themes I often return to: the changing nature of friendship, increasing social isolation (see “All the Lonely People”), and closer relationships between parents and their children.
• The average number of close friendships reported by Americans has declined markedly over the past several decades. The share who say they have 10 or more close friends (not including relatives) has fallen from 33% in 1990 to just 13% today. Meanwhile, the share who have three or fewer close friends has jumped from 27% to 49%, and the share who don’t have any close friends has climbed from 3% to 12%.

• Since 1990, Americans have also become considerably less likely to say they have a "best friend." This has dropped from 77% to 59%.
• What’s more, people are less likely to rely on their friends for personal support than in the past. In 1990, 26% of Americans said that a friend was the first person they’d turn to if they had a problem. Now that’s just 16%. Americans 30 and under--and young men in particular--have become more likely to seek support from their parents first. In 1990, 45% of young men reported that they would reach out to friends first. Today, that share is just 22%. The share of young men who would turn to their parents first has increased from 17% to 36%.

• What’s going on?
• Let's start by considering all of the sociodemographic circumstances that are highly correlated with fewer friends and greater feelings of loneliness. And there are many. They include being unmarried, an urban residence, little access to public amenities, weak religious or community engagement, self-perception as downwardly mobile, and (most controversially) higher perceived neighborhood diversity. It's fair to say that, over time, a growing share of Americans fit these circumstances. It's also fair to say that younger Americans are at the cutting edge of these shifts.
• Thus, at least in part, the decline in friendships appears to be generational. Boomers report the most friends and Millennials the fewest--just as Boomers are least likely to report feeling "lonely" and Millennials the most likely. For example, 23% of Boomers say they have at least six close friends, but only 16% of Millennials do. Young people are also twice as likely to report having no close friends (10% vs. 4%). Some of these differences may be due to a lifecycle effect--that is, a universal tendency to acquire more friends and feel more connected with increasing age. But clearly a generational effect is also at work.
• All the news isn't negative. Most importantly, while Americans may be less connected to friends, they are more connected to family. And here again we see the most dramatic deltas in today's rising generation. Millennials are a lot more likely than Boomers or Xers at the same age to live with or near their parents, depend on them for support, or--even if none of the above--maintain a close personal relationship with them.
• And while young adults today report fewer (nonfamily) "close friends," this decline in part reflects the Millennials' different understanding of how relationships work. Many years ago, I noted that young people’s friendships appeared to be changing to match their increasingly structured lives (see “Meet the Empirical Kids”). Millennials' parents were more likely to grow up with one or two best friends ("soul mates" you might spend several unsupervised summers hanging out with nonstop). But Millennials themselves were more likely to have multiplicity of “situational” friends (like a soccer teammate, then a bus stop partner, then a study buddy, each for brief intervals) than a single best friend. As young adults, Millennials excel at socializing productively and efficiently with a multitude of acquaintances in their workplace or their community.
• It hard to say if all these forces add up to a net gain or a net loss. They certainly seem to be leading the country toward a different social future, in which Americans experience stronger family ties along with wider yet shallower friendship networks.
• In Bowling Alone, the eminent sociologist Robert Putnam wrote extensively about the difference between "bonding" versus "bridging" social capital. Bonding deepens connections within a tightly knit and homogeneous group. The family is the archetype. But bonding can also occur within a neighborhood, a political party, or a church, so long as all the strong ties are inward. Boomers and Xers tend to talk a lot (as high-productivity "cultural creatives") about the enriching impact of weaker ties and greater diversity. But as they have grown older, they have ultimately driven America towards tighter friendship circles, from "urban tribes" to apocalyptic sects, with stronger bonding but not much bridging.
• Millennials, in turn, have grown up in the world that Boomers and Xers created for them. In some respects, they are following their parents' lead--marrying even later, moving less, finding it harder to trust strangers, and staying closer to their families. But in other respects, they are embracing more bridging-type activities--from social media likes to netizen activism. But it's a new direction that may take years to have maximum impact.
• As we emerge from a year and a half of isolation, look for signs that young Americans will feel more motivated to seek out new ways to connect with strangers. Then again, while hundreds of Facebook friends might give young adults an edge while networking, it may be a while before they start developing deep connections with people who aren’t related to them. Until then, perhaps they’ll just talk about finding new friends with Mom and Dad.