[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. For our last 15 minutes today, let's talk about friendship. You may have heard of America's loneliness epidemic. Approximately half of US adults reported experiencing measurable levels of loneliness, and that was before COVID. The US Surgeon General even raised an advisory last year calling loneliness a public health crisis. But a new piece in The Atlantic examined new data that found Americans do have friends, about four to five on average, but don't spend regular time seeing each other. Findings show that Americans now spend less than three hours a week with friends, compared with more than six hours a decade ago. We're going to talk to the writer of that article, but I want to get the phones going on this to ask if that sounds like you. If that resonates with you, I want to give you the opportunity to call in and tell your story. What's the status of your friendships in 2024? Do you find yourself regularly chatting with friends over text or social media, but you rarely see them in person? Do you have a friend who you always want to get together with, but you can rarely find the time? Call us, 212433 WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Maybe success stories, too, like you found a way to regularly catch up with friends. You got tired of saying on the phone or on texts, "Oh, let's do lunch," and then you never do lunch. You've merged friend groups so that your time together is a one-and-done kind of thing, but you see them, or if you're part of any social circles. If so, how you found them recently, or anything else you want to share about how you prioritize your friendships, or if you have a lot of friends, you just don't see them as the article suggests. 212433 WNYC, 433-9692. Call or text.

For Atlantic staff writer, Olga Khazan, who joins us now, her article is titled The Friendship Paradox: We all want more time with our friends, but we're spending more time alone. Hey, Olga. Welcome back to WNYC.

Olga Khazan: Thanks so much for having me.

Brian Lehrer: How'd they measure this?

Olga Khazan: They actually asked people to list their friends. They gave people a blank piece of paper and said, "List all the friends you have." When they did that, very few people, less than 4%, said that they had no friends, and most people actually said they had about four or five.

Brian Lehrer: This has changed over time.

Olga Khazan: People do have fewer friends now than they did a couple decades ago, but I think what really stuck out to me from that study is that large numbers of people, about 40%, felt like they weren't as emotionally close to their friends as they'd like to be, and a similar number felt like they wish that they had more time to spend with their friends. It's like, you can list these friends, but you can't really remember the last time you saw any of them.

Brian Lehrer: You're right. The typical American, it seems, texts a bunch of people, "We should get together," before watching TikTok alone on the couch and then passing out. "Ha ha ha." You write about unions, civic clubs, religious congregations, as having faded in the social fabric in this country, so it's not just about the pandemic got more people used to spending more time alone.

Olga Khazan: Exactly. Obviously like anything, it's multifactorial, but one aspect of this is that people don't really go to these places to gather as much anymore. This has been well reported in lots of places, but religious attendance is just down across the board, and that is a place where people would see their friends. Not saying anything one way or another for religion, but it is a place where people tend to show up at the same time every week. you don't have to get out the Google calendar and text people and ask them if they're available. You just go there.

That's the kind of thing where now it's a lot harder to maintain those friendships because you don't have a place that you can necessarily go, and a lot of neighborhoods actually don't have any third places like that.

Brian Lehrer: One recent survey of about 6,500 Americans found that college educated Americans were more likely than those with just a high school degree to host friends and neighbors at their home at least once a month. That surprises me. What might education have to do with friendship?

Olga Khazan: This is a different survey than the one I mentioned earlier, but also interesting, which essentially found that there's this kind of education divide in friendship, which is that what we're seeing is that college educated people who tend to be wealthier are having a better time making and maintaining friends than people without college degrees. A lot of this comes down to the fact that they have more time and money to go to the kinds of places where they will see people.

Orange theory is an example that the author of this survey gave me. It's a gym, it's a pricey gym that people go, and maybe you go every week on Thursdays, and you always go to orange theory, you see the same people there, and gradually you become friends. Those are the kinds of places that college educated people have access to, and that's where they're making friends these days.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a frustrated listener in Boston texting us, "Hi, Brian. I'd like to make a case for better friend phone behavior. I have a lot of friends scattered around the country, and talking on the phone is better than nothing, but many friends are terrible about returning calls and just setting aside time to talk by phone. Come on, people. It's a commitment-" writes this person, "-that can go a long way. Signed, Zeke in Boston.

I don't know. That's another level of it is, we're not getting together in person, but telephone is more personal than just text messages or Facebook posts.

Olga Khazan: That's right. This isn't in the story, but the authors of that study told me that phone calls are actually one of the best ways to stay close with your friends. After phone calls, people feel really close to their friends, and they feel very replenished, unlike after a text message or something like that, or a Facebook like. People have less time these days, and so they might not be spending as much time returning phone calls as they used to.

Brian Lehrer: I feel like people don't like to talk on the phone as much as they used to as well. Texts are just so convenient and so efficient that sometimes people go, "Urgh," when they're getting a phone call from somebody instead of a text.

Olga Khazan: I have to say, I'm guilty of this as well, especially since having a child, I feel like I have no time. If I can send a text or an email, that's usually what I default to.

Brian Lehrer: Lots of us. Joanne in New Rochelle, you're on WNYC. Hi, Joanne.

Joanne: Hi. Good morning. I love your show. Thank you, Brian. I called in to say I did belong to a few in-person groups that meet weekly or every other week or once a month, a book club, through my synagogue, there's another live program that has speakers. A lot of what I do [inaudible 00:07:54]

Brian Lehrer: I'm sorry, Joanne, your phone is just breaking up too badly, but I think I get your point, which is that you have a hard time scheduling with friends because you live all over the tri-state area. I see that you told our screener you belong to a book club, and we did hear you say you engage with religious places in your neighborhood, like your synagogue, also on Zoom. Zoom actually brings up another subtopic here. Cheryl in Brooklyn is going to go to a related place, I think. Cheryl, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Cheryl: Hey. Thanks for having me. I do believe that I use the phone a lot to connect with friends, making dates for FaceTime. I think we all are very different with our etiquette about phoning and texting. I feel like so much is lost in translation with texting, so I like to cut to the chase. One of the ways I do that is to make dates with friends, even co-work alongside with friends via FaceTime. That means getting a little handset, putting your phone on so you can talk with your hands, because I think people don't get it. Hands-free when you're talking to friends makes it much more like you're with them.

Brian Lehrer: Cheryl, thank you. That's another level-up from what we were saying, Olga, about phones. Then you get FaceTime and you get Zoom, where you are actually seeing the person even though you're not face to face with them in person.

Olga Khazan: I do think that was one kind of nice thing, if it can be said, that came out of the pandemic, is that people were more willing to socialize over Zoom with people they might not live close to. I think some of that has faded a little bit. A Zoom happy hour is seen as a little dated now or something, but I don't know, you don't see those as much anymore.

Brian Lehrer: Susan in Chatham, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi, Susan.

Susan: Hi. Hi, Brian. My comment on friends is that I don't think you need a large number of friends, but where I am right now is that, I'm sorry, I'm missing my real friends, and I can't seem to find them. Some have died. I try to make a friend like that, but it's just not the same. Yes, I have friends, but there's a certain kind of friend at least that I need, and either they've moved away or passed away, it doesn't matter. I need someone that I can talk to and just talk.

Brian Lehrer: I don't know if you live in a private house or a building where there may be some people you could connect with more easily. Have you tried to make friends in your neighborhood in some way?

Susan: Oh, I'm in a book club. I'm in a choir. Then the strange thing is sometimes even these good friends, and my situation has changed in my life, and I almost hesitate to call them because I don't want to get on to my problems even though they wouldn't care. It's just that, I guess, I still don't feel like I have that kind of friend.

Brian Lehrer: I think a lot of people can relate to this. Olga, I don't know if you've done anything, maybe not in this article, but in any of your reporting, on the difficulty of, or paths to making friends as we get older. So many of us have the good friends from childhood or college or that we strolled the strollers with when our kids were babies down the block, and then it's harder to make friends later.

Olga Khazan: Oh, absolutely. This is something that all the researchers that I talked to for this article mentioned, is just that it is real work. It takes a lot of dedication and commitment to reach out over and over again. How do you know that you're not asking the person too many times and they're not reciprocating as much? Is that okay? How do you know when you just need to spend more time together to create some memories versus, the chemistry just isn't there? It's a very difficult thing.

Brian Lehrer: Let me, before we run out of time, slip in Hannah in Brooklyn, who might have some advice for Susan in Chatham and a lot of other listeners. Hannah, you're on WNYC. We have about 30 seconds for you. Hi.

Hannah: Hi. It's Anna. In Brooklyn-

Brian Lehrer: Sorry.

Hannah: -in Park Slope. The thing that has helped me is I never leave seeing my friend until we make an appointment for the next month. Usually I see them once a month for lunch. Obviously, it'd be better to see them more, but that's what we do as a fail stop. You're not allowed to leave your lunch until you've made the next appointment. 9 times out of 10, we can do it. Picking up the phone to schedule the appointment, that's the hard part. When you're in lunch, enjoying their company, you're so happy to see them-

Brian Lehrer: Make that next appointment before you go.

Hannah: -you make the appointment for the following month. Yes. You're not allowed to leave until you make that appointment.

Brian Lehrer: One other tip in your article, Olga, real quick, is to suggest hanging for very specific amounts of time like, "Let's get together next Tuesday for one hour," because there's a lower bar to entry.

Olga Khazan: Yes, exactly. Give people a short in and out so that they can say yes and be your friend with a lower barrier to entry.

Brian Lehrer: Olga Khazan, staff writer at The Atlantic. Her latest is titled The Friendship Paradox: We all want more time with our friends, but we're spending more time alone. Thanks, Olga.

Olga Khazan: Thanks so much.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. This kind of friends group will reconvene tomorrow morning at 10:00. Now stay tuned for Allison and be her friend.

[music]

Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.