Let’s say you found yourself broke and had nothing to tide you over for the next few week. If you were in desperate need of 200 dollars, today, do you have a friend you could call who would give it to you? This was one of the questions posed in a recent study on friendship that I found so arresting. Because of all the people asked that question, a significant proportion answered in the negative.
The study revealed the gradual widening of the spaces between us with some staggering numbers about the poor state of social connection and community, including this: 17 per cent of Americans in 2024 said they didn’t have a single close friend. That’s nearly one in five people. Perhaps even more alarming is how quickly this has unfolded. Since 2021, the share of Americans without close friends jumped by 12 percent. Whatever forces are driving this quiet disintegration of relationships, they’re accelerating. The bonds that once underpinned social capital — and with it, our communities — are fraying. And when the wolves come to the door, too many now have no one to call.
And this loneliness epidemic isn’t hitting everyone equally. The study shows a growing class divide: those without college degrees are far more likely to lack close friends than those with degrees. It’s a heartbreakingly vivid portrait of a society that has forgotten how to be together. Somewhere along the way, groups fractured into individuals, and the art of connection was lost. And while this is most starkly observed in America, it’s a phenomenon present across the developed world. The real question is: How did we get here? And, more urgently, what can be done to stop the slide? To dig into these questions, I reached out to Sam Pressler, one of the authors of the study and a Practitioner Fellow at the University of Virginia’s Karsh Institute of Democracy and a Research Affiliate at the Harvard Human Flourishing Program.
Below is a transcript of our conversation edited for length and clarity.
David Halliday: I saw your study on friendship and the findings were pretty startling. What surprised you most about what you found here?
Sam Pressler: The very in-your-face finding of the study is just how much of a gap in connection exists in civic life in the United States between people who have college degrees and people who do not have college degrees. And we noticed a