The American Friendship Recession
09:38 Share

The American Friendship Recession

• Declining Friendships: Americans are experiencing a "friendship recession," marked by shrinking social circles and a lack of close friends. This trend has intensified since the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Gender Disparity: Men are disproportionately affected by the friendship recession, reporting fewer close friends and a greater increase in friendlessness compared to women.

• Impact on Civic Life: Friendship fosters community involvement and civic participation. The decline in friendships weakens these aspects of American life.

• Romantic Relationships vs. Friendships: Societal emphasis on romantic relationships often overshadows the importance of friendships, leading to a hierarchy where friendships are deemed less important.

• The Importance of Intentionality: Building and maintaining friendships in modern life requires conscious effort and intentionality.

Most Important Ideas/Facts:

• Declining Social Circles:"Americans reported a massive drop in the number of close friends, with men experiencing the steepest decline." (America’s “Friendship Recession” Is Weakening Civic Life)

• "Roughly one in four Americans with a high school degree or less report having no close friends, a dramatic increase over the last three and a half decades." (Modern Friendship: A Conversation with Author Anna Goldfarb)

• "The study found that 15% of men and 10% of women said they had no close friends. About 30 years ago, only 3% of men stated this." (Opinion: Combat the Friendship Recession)

• Friendship and Civic Life:"Friendship predicts community involvement and civic participation." (America’s “Friendship Recession” Is Weakening Civic Life)

• "Friendship is a public good connecting us to other people and places that we otherwise might not have any contact with." (America’s “Friendship Recession” Is Weakening Civic Life)

• Gender Differences:"Increasingly, American social life is dependent on a dwindling group of people doing a disproportionate amount of the heavy lifting. In most two-parent families, it’s mothers more than fathers who are in charge of keeping the family’s social calendar." (America’s “Friendship Recession” Is Weakening Civic Life)

• "Men are not socialized to fight for friendships like that. They’ll just ghost." (Modern Friendship: A Conversation with Author Anna Goldfarb)

• "It’s just really hard for men to have emotional intimacy with each other past the preteen years." (Reimagining Friendships in Everyday Life)

• Impact of Modern Life:"As adults, we have fewer opportunities to make friends simply because we are less likely to be thrust into new places or pushed to participate in new activities." (America’s “Friendship Recession” Is Weakening Civic Life)

• "The collapse of American civic life has made the process of finding and keeping friends more difficult." (Modern Friendship: A Conversation with Author Anna Goldfarb)

• "We outsource our favors. Before, when we were younger, it was like, 'Can you give me a ride to the airport? Can you come over and help me build my deck?' Now, we hire an Uber, we hire a contractor." (Modern Friendship: A Conversation with Author Anna Goldfarb)

• The Need for Intentionality:"Modern friendship isn’t just about sipping Chardonnay with your bestie like an Instagram ad for a cashmere poncho. Instead, modern friendship is about the story you tell yourself about why a friend didn’t respond to your text message asking if they wanted to get together this week for dinner." (Modern Friendship: A Conversation with Author Anna Goldfarb)

• "Modern friendships are unique in that they often lack a shared institutional context, such as church, or regularly scheduled contact, maintaining these connections requires a great deal of patience and perseverance." (Modern Friendship: A Conversation with Author Anna Goldfarb)