> "Despite minor differences between individual surveys, the data consistently show that the average number of close friendships rose from 2.2 in 2000 to 4.1 in 2024," says Hofer.
If true, this is an astonishing social transformation, because it goes against everything we here about the loneliness epidemic getting worse.
Or have people redefined what they consider to be "close friends"? Or are people actually genuinely maintaining more friendships because phones make it so much easier to message?
In-group dynamics are further ingrained as the group gets bigger. If you have 4 friends in a group, their opinions aren't as strong. If you have 40 friends in a group, not only are their opinions stronger, they'll fight vigorously to defend the group's commonly accepted beliefs. So a growing social circle does reinforce the group dynamic. (this is well established by lots of studies)
But increased polarization around the world isn't because of this. There's the typical environmental factors: an increase in changes (or challenges) to traditional values increases polarization; an influx of migrants increases polarization. But then there's also social media, where mastery of "engagement" by businesses for profit has been adopted by political groups looking to sow division to reap the benefits of polarization (an easier grip on power). The rapid rise of polarization is a combination of both.
It's nothing new of course, political/ideological groups have been doing this forever. We just have far more advanced tools with which to polarize.
I know this paper isn't about social networks, but we know this, we knew it in the 70s. The only difference is that we continue to ignore and forget it.
I’m more interested in how people determine who they trust, and the parameters by which humans decide to trust someone.
I would wager that people are shit at determining trustworthiness based on limited information (like social media representations). In the old days before social media, you got to know people in person, and decades ago, most of the people you knew were likely people you grew up around. You knew that person’s background, how they treated people, what their family was like, and what likely influences them as a person.
So much of how we process trustworthiness is how we perceive the motives of the speaker. With shallower friendships and parasocial relationships, we want to feel connected but really lack any good context that you need to actually know who you’re listening to.
> And this increase happened suddenly, between 2008 and 2010
Occam’s Razor tells me that it’s almost certainly linked to the near-total failure of the economic system (and the very slow recovery outside specific US cities).
Lol what caused this, it couldn’t have been a major financial collapse that happened around 2008, that’s what radicalised me. It must be caused by people talking to each other.
Like, if people are more polarized, there are more likely to have wider ground to sympathize. Less throttle in opinion divergences, so they can deal with more social exchanges as the only interactions are endless smooth easy agreements within their social bubbles.
The fact that we have more close friends on average is a novel and surprising observation to me. Very worthy of investigation.
But, how is moving from a circle of 2 close friends to a circle of 4 close friends a significant enough jump to "fuel polarization" on a societal level? There's also a 10-year gap between USA (and other countries' data points too) that covers the span of the whole alleged "aligned trend". It feels a little bit like the authors just went "Look! Two data trends moving in the same direction! Causal?!"
More seriously, I would love to see a much deeper dive on:
- Technological and associated psychological trends that might be causing greater polarisation (plenty of existing data here)
- How an increase in close friends can co-exist with an apparent loneliness epidemic (plenty of existing data here too)
I noticed this when I studied abroad in the Netherlands — a highly educated, slightly more digitalized country than my own. Politics there splintered into micro-parties, each “hardly exchanging between bubbles,” as the study puts it. First impressions were warm, but dates always ended with splitting the bill. Friend groups felt just as closed off, except for Dutchies who had just as me lived abroad before, learned to bridge cultures and still are my closest friends today.
Digitalization and the pursuit of perfect information seemed to invite more binary thinking — and with it, more opportunities to disagree every single day. Meanwhile, other forces found easy consensus on simpler, more immediate issues: cheap gas, housing, grocery prices, job security, immigration. Complex, long-horizon topics like the climate crisis rarely stood a chance.
> The sharp rise in both polarization and the number of close friends occurred between 2008 and 2010—precisely when social media platforms and smartphones first achieved widespread adoption. This technological shift may have fundamentally changed how people connect with each other, indirectly promoting polarization.
Indirectly? Seems to me that this is far more likely the "direct" cause, given what we know about the psychology around algorithmic feeds.
Also - I'm not sure if I missed it in the article, but did they define what they mean by "close relationship" means? I'd be very curious to know if a purely online relationship is counted and how this may also contribute to the observations made.
> What disappears as a result is a societal baseline of tolerance—a development that could contribute to the long-term erosion of democratic structures. To prevent societies from increasingly fragmenting, Thurner emphasizes the importance of learning early how to engage with different opinions and actively cultivating tolerance.
That could be a problem, considering how the push back to "actively cultivating tolerance" has unfolded so far.
For years, I have had very few close friends, fewer than mentioned as previous average, I’ve withdrawn almost completely from social media, and I’m still polarized, because there are only two major political sides in the U.S., and which news source you listen to drives your opinion.
Polarization maybe a bit unclear word here. Connectivity creates cohesion, which creates larger creatures. So what we have is, virtual monsters roaming around with huge human groups riding on them. They can organize real protests, polarized opinion and massive impact wherever these monsters go.
I've had a similar experience. The bigger my social circle gets and the more people I follow, the easier it is to end up surrounded by a single perspective, especially on work-related topics. At first, I thought I was broadening my view, but it turned out I was just reinforcing my existing preferences.
Do you make a point of keeping people with different opinions in your network, or do you find it more comfortable to stay in circles where everyone thinks alike?
4 western countries with aging populations, what they really found is that people are getting older, have more free time for friends, who are now interest oriented rather than work or school related.
People talked for a long time about filter bubbles. I think we are realizing that it was actually GOOD to be in a filter bubble (neighborhood, school, a few close friends, etc.)
It is not that people have wildly different views all of a sudden, it is that being exposed to views we used to be protected against is really unpleasant.
"The world isn't so bad" -> "The world is very bad"
Links are "DOI NOT FOUND". Article does not seem to suggest that the study actual found any relationship between the increase in the two things, just that they both happened around the same time.
> When people are more connected with each other, they encounter different opinions more frequently. This inevitably leads to more conflict and thus greater societal polarization
If this is true, it is counterintuitive, and runs against the prevailing narrative that living within your bubble and not interacting with opposing viewpoints is what causes polarisation. I thought cities were supposed to be less polarised because people can't help encountering other viewpoints.
The study linked at the beginning of this article, and the two listed under "More information" at the bottom all take me to a page with the error
"DOI Not Found"
Given that the main (only significant) fact cited in the article goes against everything else I've read, I would like to see the actual study and how it came to the conclusion that the number of close friends has doubled.
Here are some sources that appear to contradict this article:
This always seemed intuitively inevitable if you ever played with a graph layout tool like dot or similar kinetic layout engine. With weak connectivity the nodes don't cluster readily, but with more connections they "snap" into rigid subassemblies. It always seemed to me like a bad thing for society but it could well be a case of "old man yells at moon."
You can have 10 "friends". 3 close ones. Anything larger than that and you are way out of your depth and can't possibly maintain those relationships in a meaningful, personal way.
Some theories on polarization I've collected so far that are interesting to think about:
1. Fragmented Realities and Epistemic Closure
Society has splintered into separate informational worlds.
People no longer disagree about interpretations — they disagree about basic facts.
Every event is reinterpreted through group narratives, while algorithms and media ecosystems reinforce self-sealing belief systems that reject contradictory evidence.
Truth has become tribal.
⸻
2. Complexity, Distrust, and the Need for Simplicity
Modern systems — from technology to institutions — are too complex for most to grasp.
This creates epistemic anxiety and fuels distrust.
People fill gaps in understanding with emotionally satisfying stories or conspiracies that reaffirm their group’s worldview, simplifying chaos into moral clarity.
⸻
3. Freedom Without Shared Norms
Unlimited freedom of expression, especially online, allows individuals to curate entire realities — news, values, communities, even moral codes.
With no shared gatekeepers or social guardrails, this leads to radical pluralism without cohesion, making dialogue and compromise feel impossible.
⸻
4. Identity Through Opposition
People now define themselves less by what they love than by what they hate.
Belonging is sustained through shared enemies, not shared ideals.
When external foes disappear, movements turn inward, targeting internal dissenters in purity spirals.
This “negative partisanship” keeps polarization alive even in victory.
⸻
5. Homogeneity Within, Division Between
Within each ideological camp, members become increasingly uniform, while differences between camps grow unbridgeable.
Social media and online subcultures create homogeneous echo chambers, replacing the moderating influence of local, mixed communities.
⸻
6. Moral Absolutism and Emotional Reasoning
Disagreement has become moralized.
Positions are interpreted as ethical declarations, not intellectual arguments — “if you question this policy, you must be evil.”
Complex moral issues are reduced to emotional reactions (“yay” or “boo”), eliminating space for nuance and ensuring every debate feels existential.
⸻
7. Fear of Ostracism and the Loss of Honest Discourse
Individuals self-censor to avoid social punishment.
Within tribes, dissent signals disloyalty; silence becomes survival.
Even when people privately know inconsistencies in their group’s logic, they publicly conform, reinforcing collective delusion.
⸻
8. Purity Spirals and Internal Cannibalization
Movements built on moral fervor tend to devour their own.
The demand for ideological purity leads to factionalism and self-destruction — evident in both political extremes.
Each cycle of purification shrinks the movement and intensifies radicalism.
⸻
9. Outrage Economies and Performative Extremes
Attention, not truth, is the currency of the digital age.
Algorithms reward anger, certainty, and spectacle, pushing participants toward theatrical extremity.
Outrage becomes addictive, and moderation becomes invisible.
⸻
10. Collapse of Shared Identity
Both left and right have lost sources of positive collective identity.
The left often ties self-worth to guilt or systemic critique; the right has turned against institutions it once championed.
Without shared symbols or pride, all that remains is mutual resentment and moral posturing.
⸻
11. Self-Directed Polarization and Moral Competition
Especially in progressive spaces, moral status is signaled through self-critique and guilt, producing competition over who can appear most virtuous.
This inward moral warfare fragments coalitions and deepens alienation, even among ideological allies.
⸻
12. Excessive Individualism and Identity Nihilism
When every norm, archetype, and tradition is deconstructed, people lose a sense of meaning and belonging.
The absence of shared cultural frameworks drives individuals to seek identity in micro-tribes — often online — where belonging depends on rigid ideological loyalty.
⸻
13. Perception Distortion and Amplified Extremes
Media and social networks exaggerate the prevalence of fringe behaviors and views, making each side believe the other is dominated by extremists.
This illusion of extremity fuels fear and rage, even when most people are moderate.
⸻
14. Cynicism, Performance, and the Collapse of Grace
Public moral life has become performative.
People perform virtue or outrage online instead of acting constructively in reality.
Every good deed is questioned as clout-seeking; every mistake is eternal.
This erodes trust, forgiveness, and the possibility of moral growth.
⸻
15. Technology and the Future of Polarization
AI and algorithmic personalization amplify division by creating individually tailored echo chambers.
Combined with emotional fatigue (“outrage burnout”), this could produce a paradoxical future: a society both numb and hyper-polarized — disengaged yet unbridgeably divided.
Yes. The same Internet that was going to connect the gay teenager in gay-hostile territory like rural Alabama or Iran and save them from suicide, it unfortunately turns out can also connect actual neo-Nazis and KKK members across the globe.
Understanding other cultures and giving me a chance to experience them has always been the quickest way to get me to become far more stereotypical / bigoted. I am willing to be open and idealistic about most any idea / ethnicity / culture but once I actually face it in real life and question if I want my kids exposed to that, then the rubber hits the road.
The problem isn't connectivity provided by the Internet or the average number of friends. Those things are good on their own. The problem is centralized moderation in an infinitely connective environment (aka the Internet), which will create intellectually and ideologically homogenous groups that increase in size without limit.
The solution is to ban all server-side ranking, moderation, and filtering mechanisms and replace them with client-side-only solutions, at least for large platforms above a certain user count like X and YouTube. Same thing for search engines and chatbots.
Each person should be able to control what they can post and view online, but not what anyone else posts or views. The norms that we use to moderate physical public spaces must not be applied to online public spaces. Until we discard those norms, people will continue to become increasingly polarized, democracy will continue to decline worldwide, and violent conflicts will continue to increase in frequency and scale.
Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
(phys.org)209 points by geox 27 October 2025 | 218 comments
Comments
If true, this is an astonishing social transformation, because it goes against everything we here about the loneliness epidemic getting worse.
Or have people redefined what they consider to be "close friends"? Or are people actually genuinely maintaining more friendships because phones make it so much easier to message?
Related:
https://open.substack.com/pub/josephheath/p/populism-fast-an...
But increased polarization around the world isn't because of this. There's the typical environmental factors: an increase in changes (or challenges) to traditional values increases polarization; an influx of migrants increases polarization. But then there's also social media, where mastery of "engagement" by businesses for profit has been adopted by political groups looking to sow division to reap the benefits of polarization (an easier grip on power). The rapid rise of polarization is a combination of both.
It's nothing new of course, political/ideological groups have been doing this forever. We just have far more advanced tools with which to polarize.
I know this paper isn't about social networks, but we know this, we knew it in the 70s. The only difference is that we continue to ignore and forget it.
I would wager that people are shit at determining trustworthiness based on limited information (like social media representations). In the old days before social media, you got to know people in person, and decades ago, most of the people you knew were likely people you grew up around. You knew that person’s background, how they treated people, what their family was like, and what likely influences them as a person.
So much of how we process trustworthiness is how we perceive the motives of the speaker. With shallower friendships and parasocial relationships, we want to feel connected but really lack any good context that you need to actually know who you’re listening to.
Occam’s Razor tells me that it’s almost certainly linked to the near-total failure of the economic system (and the very slow recovery outside specific US cities).
The DOI in the article is being reported as invalid. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2517530122
As is it's hard to evaluate if there is anything substantial to get out of these claims.
First time for me to meet with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexity_Science_Hub
Is that cause or correlation?
Like, if people are more polarized, there are more likely to have wider ground to sympathize. Less throttle in opinion divergences, so they can deal with more social exchanges as the only interactions are endless smooth easy agreements within their social bubbles.
But, how is moving from a circle of 2 close friends to a circle of 4 close friends a significant enough jump to "fuel polarization" on a societal level? There's also a 10-year gap between USA (and other countries' data points too) that covers the span of the whole alleged "aligned trend". It feels a little bit like the authors just went "Look! Two data trends moving in the same direction! Causal?!"
More seriously, I would love to see a much deeper dive on:
- Technological and associated psychological trends that might be causing greater polarisation (plenty of existing data here)
- How an increase in close friends can co-exist with an apparent loneliness epidemic (plenty of existing data here too)
Digitalization and the pursuit of perfect information seemed to invite more binary thinking — and with it, more opportunities to disagree every single day. Meanwhile, other forces found easy consensus on simpler, more immediate issues: cheap gas, housing, grocery prices, job security, immigration. Complex, long-horizon topics like the climate crisis rarely stood a chance.
Indirectly? Seems to me that this is far more likely the "direct" cause, given what we know about the psychology around algorithmic feeds.
Also - I'm not sure if I missed it in the article, but did they define what they mean by "close relationship" means? I'd be very curious to know if a purely online relationship is counted and how this may also contribute to the observations made.
That could be a problem, considering how the push back to "actively cultivating tolerance" has unfolded so far.
It is not that people have wildly different views all of a sudden, it is that being exposed to views we used to be protected against is really unpleasant.
"The world isn't so bad" -> "The world is very bad"
Note that this study MAY not be accurate
Anyone who has ever been to public school knows this in their bones.
If this is true, it is counterintuitive, and runs against the prevailing narrative that living within your bubble and not interacting with opposing viewpoints is what causes polarisation. I thought cities were supposed to be less polarised because people can't help encountering other viewpoints.
"DOI Not Found"
Given that the main (only significant) fact cited in the article goes against everything else I've read, I would like to see the actual study and how it came to the conclusion that the number of close friends has doubled.
Here are some sources that appear to contradict this article:
https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/the-state-of-a...
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/250617/dq250...
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11288408/#pone.0305...
Thanks to David Wong for explaining this in JDATE, calling it the Babel threshold.
1. Fragmented Realities and Epistemic Closure
Society has splintered into separate informational worlds. People no longer disagree about interpretations — they disagree about basic facts. Every event is reinterpreted through group narratives, while algorithms and media ecosystems reinforce self-sealing belief systems that reject contradictory evidence. Truth has become tribal.
⸻
2. Complexity, Distrust, and the Need for Simplicity
Modern systems — from technology to institutions — are too complex for most to grasp. This creates epistemic anxiety and fuels distrust. People fill gaps in understanding with emotionally satisfying stories or conspiracies that reaffirm their group’s worldview, simplifying chaos into moral clarity.
⸻
3. Freedom Without Shared Norms
Unlimited freedom of expression, especially online, allows individuals to curate entire realities — news, values, communities, even moral codes. With no shared gatekeepers or social guardrails, this leads to radical pluralism without cohesion, making dialogue and compromise feel impossible.
⸻
4. Identity Through Opposition
People now define themselves less by what they love than by what they hate. Belonging is sustained through shared enemies, not shared ideals. When external foes disappear, movements turn inward, targeting internal dissenters in purity spirals. This “negative partisanship” keeps polarization alive even in victory.
⸻
5. Homogeneity Within, Division Between
Within each ideological camp, members become increasingly uniform, while differences between camps grow unbridgeable. Social media and online subcultures create homogeneous echo chambers, replacing the moderating influence of local, mixed communities.
⸻
6. Moral Absolutism and Emotional Reasoning
Disagreement has become moralized. Positions are interpreted as ethical declarations, not intellectual arguments — “if you question this policy, you must be evil.” Complex moral issues are reduced to emotional reactions (“yay” or “boo”), eliminating space for nuance and ensuring every debate feels existential.
⸻
7. Fear of Ostracism and the Loss of Honest Discourse
Individuals self-censor to avoid social punishment. Within tribes, dissent signals disloyalty; silence becomes survival. Even when people privately know inconsistencies in their group’s logic, they publicly conform, reinforcing collective delusion.
⸻
8. Purity Spirals and Internal Cannibalization
Movements built on moral fervor tend to devour their own. The demand for ideological purity leads to factionalism and self-destruction — evident in both political extremes. Each cycle of purification shrinks the movement and intensifies radicalism.
⸻
9. Outrage Economies and Performative Extremes
Attention, not truth, is the currency of the digital age. Algorithms reward anger, certainty, and spectacle, pushing participants toward theatrical extremity. Outrage becomes addictive, and moderation becomes invisible.
⸻
10. Collapse of Shared Identity
Both left and right have lost sources of positive collective identity. The left often ties self-worth to guilt or systemic critique; the right has turned against institutions it once championed. Without shared symbols or pride, all that remains is mutual resentment and moral posturing.
⸻
11. Self-Directed Polarization and Moral Competition
Especially in progressive spaces, moral status is signaled through self-critique and guilt, producing competition over who can appear most virtuous. This inward moral warfare fragments coalitions and deepens alienation, even among ideological allies.
⸻
12. Excessive Individualism and Identity Nihilism
When every norm, archetype, and tradition is deconstructed, people lose a sense of meaning and belonging. The absence of shared cultural frameworks drives individuals to seek identity in micro-tribes — often online — where belonging depends on rigid ideological loyalty.
⸻
13. Perception Distortion and Amplified Extremes
Media and social networks exaggerate the prevalence of fringe behaviors and views, making each side believe the other is dominated by extremists. This illusion of extremity fuels fear and rage, even when most people are moderate.
⸻
14. Cynicism, Performance, and the Collapse of Grace
Public moral life has become performative. People perform virtue or outrage online instead of acting constructively in reality. Every good deed is questioned as clout-seeking; every mistake is eternal. This erodes trust, forgiveness, and the possibility of moral growth.
⸻
15. Technology and the Future of Polarization
AI and algorithmic personalization amplify division by creating individually tailored echo chambers. Combined with emotional fatigue (“outrage burnout”), this could produce a paradoxical future: a society both numb and hyper-polarized — disengaged yet unbridgeably divided.
The internet has accelerated this.
For details see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45515980
The solution is to ban all server-side ranking, moderation, and filtering mechanisms and replace them with client-side-only solutions, at least for large platforms above a certain user count like X and YouTube. Same thing for search engines and chatbots.
Each person should be able to control what they can post and view online, but not what anyone else posts or views. The norms that we use to moderate physical public spaces must not be applied to online public spaces. Until we discard those norms, people will continue to become increasingly polarized, democracy will continue to decline worldwide, and violent conflicts will continue to increase in frequency and scale.