It used to be common belief that by midlife you'd enjoy a sturdy circle—childhood pals, uni roommates, coworkers turned confidants. Yet at some point, you realise that friendships demand far more effort than romantic relationships. Some fade and some endure. But often you're left with few real friends or acquaintances who resemble more like distant memories. It’s like your receding hairline: inevitable and quietly alarming.
Today, many adults, especially men, report having no close friends. That isn’t an anomaly. It’s the loneliness epidemic in full bloom: the so-called friendship recession. Sadly, discussing about real, physical connections has become a thing of the past as the wave of AI connections struts across the room making "friendship connections" on Facebook feel like a demo version.
As stark as it sounds, the bottom line is: friendships are evaporating. Surely, many adults today wonder "Where are all my friends gone" and they are not wrong. It truly has become a case of friendship recession for many who find themselves walking the thin line between absent friends and friends.
Coined by sociologists, the "friendship recession" refers to the decline in meaningful adult friendships. Experts point to multiple pressures breaking down friendship. Longer working hours, remote work, moving cities with large scale migrations taking place, one must say countries, caregiving responsibilities, and a cultural shift where friendships often take a back seat to family or career commitments or a seen as statistical ghosts-AI chatbots.
In fact, in an interview on a tech podcast, Mark Zuckerberg recently spoke about ways AI could make social media more interactive, including turning AI chatbots into friends for people who have few and want more. "Is this going to replace in-person connections or real-life connections? My default is that the answer to that is probably no," Zuckerberg says.
"There are all these things that are better about physical connections when you can have them. But the reality is that people just don't have the connections, and they feel more alone a lot of the time than they would like."
Ironically, our hyperconnected world often leaves us more emotionally isolated. Passive scrolling and superficial interactions replace deep conversation. A quarter of adults report their friendships exist only online—yet these are statistically less protective against poor mental and physical health. While social media may offer visibility, but it rarely fosters vulnerability and no amount of confessions to the illusory AI-friend can take over the comfort of a genuine friendships.
Yet, most of us find ourselves interacting with our phones more than our friends in real-time. We indulge in others lives passively through indispensable devices that were met to help us maintain connections.
Research shows that phone presence alone—let alone active use—can erode enjoyment and connection in social settings, a phenomenon dubbed “phubbing." Many studies have found that lower screen use correlates with better friendship quality, and higher screen time often follows dips in connection. And if this isn't enough to make us want to ditch our screentime, adding to the alarm are AI-powered companions, once a novelty, now are fast becoming emotional stand-ins.
Tech giants Meta and Microsoft executives have openly suggested AI friends as solutions to loneliness, even as psychologists warn about the shallow promises technology makes. Heavy AI users often report rising loneliness and emotional dependency with diminished real-world social interactions. Teens are increasingly treating chatbots like friends, yet many still say human connections hold far more value.
They're temporary breaks from screens and have been shown to strengthen social bonds by refocusing attention on offline life. But they also come with side effects like FOMO or social pressure. Yet their net benefit to relationships is clear: real presence trumps virtual presence.
In the end, the answer is simple: yes, ditching screens (at least some of the time) can help salvage what’s left of real friendship. But the real revival won’t come simply from scrolling less. It’ll come from showing up more: coffee meets, board game nights, park walks, living-room conversations without phones in hand.
Because friendship doesn’t survive algorithms and autopilot responses. It thrives in the awkward silences, the unexpected check-ins, the unfiltered laughs, and physical presence. If friendships are evaporating, the antidote is not banning tech entirely, but building cultural habits where being present—emotionally and physically becomes intentional again.
So, if you believe you might be nearing a friendship recession, would you choose presence over screen‑time?
