The Friendship Recession: Why 1 in 8 Americans Has No Close Friends | Flip the Box Ep 10

Flip the Box® with Shari Leid · Sep 22, 2026 · 18m

If something big happened to you tonight, who would you call? Not text. Call. And the harder question: who would call you?

This week I'm taking on the friendship recession. In 1990, 3% of Americans said they had no close friends. By 2021 it was 12%, and the research since keeps pointing the same direction. Men have been hit hardest: the share with at least six close friends was cut nearly in half in three decades.

We blame our phones, COVID, remote work, and being busy. I think something else is going on. We've become incredibly good at protecting our time and increasingly bad at sharing our…