About a quarter fewer Americans socialize on an average day than in 2003, but those who do still spend about two hours
On an average day in 2025, 30.4% of Americans 15 and older spent some time socializing as their main activity, which in the American Time Use Survey means visiting, talking in person or going to parties and other social events. In 2003, the first year of the survey, the share was 40.2%. Averaged over everyone, including the people who didn't socialize at all, that works out to about 35 minutes a day in 2025, down from 47 minutes in 2003.
The drop comes from fewer people socializing
Because the hours among people who socialized held near two a day, nearly all of the 12-minute fall in average socializing time comes from the smaller share of people who socialize on a given day. A typical stretch of socializing lasts about as long as it did in 2003, while the share of people who have one on a given day is down by about a quarter.
Men's average fell further than women's, from 0.73 hours a day in 2003 to 0.52 in 2025, a decline of 29%, while women's fell 21%, from 0.82 hours to 0.65.
Every age group socializes less than before 2020
Single-year figures for age groups swing widely because each group is a small slice of the survey sample, so the chart below compares the average of 2016 to 2019 with the average of 2021 to 2025. Teenagers 15 to 19 fell the most, from 48 minutes a day to 37, a decline of 23%, followed by people 65 to 74, who fell 18%, from 41 minutes to 33. The smallest declines were among people 55 to 64, at 3%, and 35 to 44, at 4%.
Every Age Group Socializes Less Than Before 2020
Average minutes a day spent socializing and communicating, all people in each age group, 2016–19 average vs. 2021–25 average
Hover or tap a row for the exact figures.
Time with friends peaks at 18
A different cut of the same survey counts every activity people do in the company of friends, from eating to watching TV, which is why it runs higher than the socializing figures above. Our World in Data pooled the years 2010 to 2024 (excluding 2020) and found that time with friends peaks at age 18, at 1.95 hours a day, drops below an hour by 28 and stays between 25 and 38 minutes a day from 35 on. Time alone rises over the same span, from 3.7 hours a day at 15 to about 8 hours at 80. Move the slider to see the figures for your age.
Time With Friends Peaks At 18
Average hours a day spent alone and with friends, by age, United States, 2010–2024 pooled (excluding 2020)
What the survey can't say
The survey asks each respondent to account for a single day, so it shows how much time Americans spend together but not why that time shrank. Writers such as Derek Thompson have pointed to remote work, phones and streaming, and the 2021 drop lines up with the pandemic, but this data can't separate those causes, and we don't try to.
BLS usually publishes each year's results the following summer, so the 2026 figures should arrive in mid-2027. They will show whether the share socializing on an average day, which has hovered near 29% to 30% for five years, has settled there or begins to recover.
How we counted. The share socializing per day, hours among those who socialized, and the overall averages for 2003–2025 are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' American Time Use Survey, Table A-1, "Socializing and communicating," for people 15 and older (2025, 2003). BLS didn't produce annual estimates for 2020 because data collection was suspended from mid-March to May. Age-group figures are from the annual news releases (Table 11A); our period figures are simple averages of the published yearly values. Time alone and with friends by age is from Our World in Data, which processes ATUS microdata and pools 2010–2024; its "80" point covers ages 80 to 84.
You may republish the charts in this story, with credit to The News in Data and a link to this story.