image of a man sitting before a cyber-like face

June 7, 2023

The Price We’ll Pay for Our AI Future: More Loneliness

Americans are trapped in a loneliness epidemic. Across the country, people are having fewer social interactions, spending more time alone, and reporting fewer close friends. Continue Reading →

A young woman wrapped in a blanket stares pensively out the window.

April 4, 2022

The Childhood Loneliness of Generation Z

There’s a growing concern that young adults today are experiencing an epidemic of loneliness, social isolation, and disconnection. A lot of blame is being placed on social media, or more recently the pandemic. Delayed family formation is another likely factor—young adults are marrying later than they once did. But what if Gen Z is lonelier Continue Reading →

A child looks through a window of a car on a rainy day.

February 10, 2022

The Problem with Parental Favoritism

There is no shortage of advice for parents. The Internet is awash with parenting tips, tactics, and strategies to meet every conceivable exigency. But for all the varying recommendations provided to parents, perhaps one of the most critical is something to be avoided—picking favorites. A new survey suggests that parental favoritism, or even the perception Continue Reading →

bridge between college graduates and those without a degree

December 13, 2021

The College Connection: The Education Divide in American Social and Community Life

Despite concerns about rising student debt, the economic value of a college education has never been clearer. College graduates are more socially connected, civically engaged, and active in their communities. College graduates have more extensive systems of social support, a larger number of close friends, and feel lonely and isolated less often than those without a degree. Continue Reading →

Photo of a group of friends posing together for a fun photo.

September 26, 2019

A loneliness epidemic? How marriage, religion, and mobility explain the generation gap in loneliness

Conventional wisdom holds that loneliness is a serious problem in America today. Yet data from the Survey on Community and Society (SCS) suggest that such characterizations of loneliness are overblown and possibly wrong. Continue Reading →

Generation Uncoupled

Generation Uncoupled book

Generation Uncoupled: America's New Gender Divide and the Crisis of Human Connection

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Survey Reports

Daniel A. Cox
July 23, 2026

A Digital Divide in American Adolescence: Gender, Class, and the New Teenage Experience

If teenage years once represented a time of rebellion, teenagers’ lives today are marked less by pushing boundaries and more by building their own. Many teenage experiences are less common than they once were—dating, working a part-time job, and experimenting with drugs and alcohol are less common experiences. The 2026 American Teenagers Survey from the Continue Reading →

Daniel A. Cox, Jae Grace, Avery Shields
April 27, 2026

Strangers Next Door: The Decline of Neighborhood Socializing and the Class Divide in Belonging

Acknowledgment The American Enterprise Institute’s Survey Center on American Life is grateful to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for its generous support of this research. As Americans spend more of their time online, the neighborhood—once a primary physical location for real-world socialization—is playing less of a central role than ever before. Since Continue Reading →