Daily Socializing Falls to 35 Minutes, a Two-Decade Low, BLS Data Show

Americans are spending significantly less time with other people than they did 20 years ago, with average daily socializing time dropping from 45 minutes to 35 minutes, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' American Time Use Survey. The decline cuts across every generation and carries consequences that researchers say reach from individual longevity to the formation of shared belief — a structural contraction in human connection with few historical precedents.

Youth Bear the Sharpest Decline

The steepest drop belongs to 15- to 24-year-olds, who went from spending roughly an hour a day socializing to 35 minutes — a compression that tracks the explosion of screen time within that cohort. Gallup data show teens now average 4.8 hours daily on platforms including TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat. Sociologists and psychologists who study the phenomenon argue that screen-based interaction does not replicate the effects of in-person time, even when it consumes more hours of the day. Substack writer Derek Thompson labeled the broader cultural pattern "The Anti-Social Century" in the Atlantic.

Remote Work and the Comfort of Staying In

Structural forces are reinforcing the withdrawal. The pandemic-era shift to remote work has not reversed, keeping a sustained share of the population homebound on a daily basis. Residential trends add to the dynamic: homes are larger and more comfortable than a generation ago, entertainment options have expanded, and near-universal restaurant delivery through apps has removed one of the last routine reasons to leave. The friction of going out has fallen while the incentive to stay in has grown.

Third Places Are Closing

Physical gathering infrastructure is eroding in parallel with individual habits. A 2025 report from researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder documented widespread closures of libraries, coffee shops, and museums over roughly the last decade — the informal venues that historically provided low-threshold opportunities for casual social contact. Churches are also shuttering at unprecedented rates, according to Axios reporting, eliminating another category of recurring communal space.

The convergence of smartphone habits, remote-work inertia, and vanishing third places points to a durable structural shift, not a cyclical one. The Bureau of Labor Statistics data, surfaced by Axios, suggest the contraction in daily social time is now a baseline condition of American life rather than a temporary deviation from it.