🎶 I’m so lonely… 🎶
American friendship has contracted in recent years. In 2021, we found that American friendship circles were significantly smaller than a generation earlier. Three years later, with pandemic social restrictions behind us, we find that the size of American social networks has not recovered.
Today, 17 percent of Americans report having no close friends—a category that excludes close relatives. This is only a modest increase from 2021, when 12 percent of Americans reported they had no close friends. Eighteen percent of Americans have one or two close friends. About one-third (34 percent) of Americans have three to five close friends, and one-quarter (25 percent) have six or more.
The survey reveals a massive educational disparity in Americans’ number of close friends. Roughly one in four (24 percent) Americans with a high school education or less report having no close friends, compared to only 10 percent of college graduates. College graduates are twice as likely as those without any college education to have at least six close friends (33 percent vs. 17 percent).
The educational gap in the size of American friendship circles is a relatively recent phenomenon. Roughly three decades ago, Americans with more formal education did not have larger social circles. In 1990, nearly half (49 percent) of Americans with a high school degree or less reported having at least six close friends—a slightly greater share than those with a college degree—while only 3 percent reported having no close friends.
https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/disconnected-places-and-spaces/