Your Contacts All Know Each Other. That's the Problem. — Julien Reszka
← Blog
Americans have fewer close friends than in 1990, but the fix is not simply adding more. It is adding the right kind.
4x Increase in the share of Americans with zero close friends, from 3 percent in 1990 to 12 percent in 2021 Cox, D.A., The State of American Friendship: Change, Challenges, and Loss, Survey Center on American Life, AEI, June 2021
Americans are lonelier than they used to be, but that is not really the problem. The problem is that the friends most people do have are almost all the same kind of friend.
The share of Americans reporting zero close friends more than quadrupled between 1990 and 2021.
People with 10 or more close friends fell from 33 percent of the public in 1990 to 13 percent in 2021
Close to half of Americans, 49 percent, now say they have three or fewer close friends
Most Americans now say they made their most recent friend at work, more than at school, church, or through existing friends
The obvious fix is to make more friends. Weak ties matter more than people assume, but a University of Chicago sociologist found that even the right kind of tie is not enough on its own if it just adds to a circle that already talks to itself.
Ronald Burt spent years studying who actually got promoted, got evaluated well, and got credited with good ideas inside a large company. It was not the people with the most contacts. It was the people whose contacts did not know each other.
Opinion and behavior are more similar within a group than between groups. Someone connected to only one group hears the same ideas everyone in that group already has. Someone connected across two groups that do not talk to each other sees combinations neither group sees on its own, earlier than anyone else, and gets credit for having the idea first.
Most people who try to fix a shrinking social life do the easy version: they add more people from the same job, the same gym, the same group of friends who already know each other. That makes the existing cluster denser. It does not add a bridge. The measurable advantage, in Burt's data, went specifically to the people whose network spanned two groups that had almost nothing to do with each other.
Myth: The fix for a shrinking social life is simply making more friends.Burt, R.S., Structural Holes and Good Ideas, American Journal of Sociology, 2004
“People whose networks bridge the structural holes between groups have an advantage in detecting and developing rewarding opportunities. They are able to see early, see more broadly, and translate information across groups.”Ronald Burt, sociologist, University of Chicago, on the mechanism behind network brokerage
Before adding another contact from your existing circle, ask whether they already know everyone else you know. If yes, you added density, not reach. Look instead for someone from a room you have never been in.
Post on X
Products I recommend
Free to try, no login needed. Results saved locally in your browser.
Looking for people outside your existing circle? Describe what you do and your own interests, and find people who align.<br>Find your people
Discussion
Do the people in your circle mostly already know each other, or is any one of them from a completely different world than the rest?
Post on X
Your name *
Your email * (never published)
City, country (optional)
Tell me about your situation *
Send<br>All comments are manually moderated by the author.
Subscribe to get new posts by email →
See also
You're Not Ready to Compete with Self Disruptive Companies
Your Key to Success Isn't More Luck or Hard Work
Rent and Pensions Eat Half of Your Disposable Income
Browse all figures →<br>Browse all myths →<br>Browse all quotes →