This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
What does your ideal night look like? Maybe it’s dinner with friends or a quiet evening at home with family or a partner. If you picked the latter option, you are part of a growing contingent of Americans who are spending less time with friends and, by some measures, more time with family.
Although enjoying the company of loved ones can be deeply fulfilling, something may be lost when our household makes up the majority of our social life. In a recent Atlantic story, my colleague Faith Hill explores why friendship is taking a back seat to family time. In one survey, nearly 40 percent of respondents who said they wished they saw friends more cited a lack of money as an obstacle; others pointed to busy schedules and exhaustion. “More Americans are hanging out with family—by choice, but also by necessity,” Faith writes.
Friendships offer a type of companionship that family life can’t always provide. But unlike family ties, friendships depend on our continued attention to nurture them, making them meaningful—and easier to lose.
The Socializing That’s Replacing Friend Time
By Faith Hill
More Americans are hanging out with family—by choice, but also by necessity.
The Friendship Paradox
By Olga Khazan
We all want more time with our friends, but we’re spending more time alone. (From 2024)
What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?
By Rhaina Cohen
“Our boyfriends, our significant others, and our husbands are supposed to be No. 1. Our worlds are backward.” (From 2020)
Still Curious?
- Another symptom of growing isolation: A recent study found that people spoke fewer words a day in 2019 than in 2005, Olga Khazan wrote.
- The new age of endless parenting: More grown kids are in near-constant contact with their family. Some call this a failure to launch—but there’s another way to look at it, Hill wrote in 2024.
Other Diversions
- The school apps are out of control.
- LeBron James, Philadelphian
- An underrated reason boys are reading less
PS
My colleague Isabel Fattal recently asked readers to share a photo of something that sparks their sense of awe in the world. “Where I live is often crispy and dry by early summer; everything loses its greenness and turns golden to brown. But a week or so ago we got some great rain, so I moseyed down to the river, to a spot I frequent often, and was enamored by the vibrant pops of green lichen and moss on the boulders and trees next to the river,” Allie S. from El Portal, California, shared. “The contrasting textures and colors were an absolute delight. And there is something truly special about returning to a place again and again and then one day seeing it in a new way and appreciating it once more.”
We’ll continue to feature your responses in the coming weeks.
— Rafaela