The Archive
Everything we have published
179 articles · page 1 of 6
August 20265
The Science
Why Reaching Out to Someone You've Drifted From Works Better Than It Feels Like It Will
The research on dormant ties suggests that reconnecting with someone you've lost touch with is less awkward, and more useful, than it feels in the moment. Here's why the discomfort is misleading.
Making Friends
The Loneliness Trial Where Friendly Chats Were the Control Group
A 2026 randomised trial gave 1,151 lonely older adults eight half-hour phone calls. The people who got warm conversation did worse than the people who got a plan. Here is what that finding is actually saying.
Life Changes
What to Do When a Breakup Takes Your Friends With It
Ending a relationship often ends a whole social circle at the same time. A look at which tools actually help rebuild one, and which just add another app to check.
Work & Remote Life
Keeping a Friendship Alive When Nothing Is Forcing You To
When a job, a building, or a school schedule stops throwing you together with someone, the friendship doesn't end automatically. But it does need something to replace the structure that used to do the work for free.
The Science
The Point of a Pottery Class Isn't the Pottery
A new Bristol study links loneliness to worse mental health at scale. The more useful question is why shared activity works better than conversation as a way in.
July 20265
Digital Life
Is the Group Chat a Third Place?
Group chats have taken over the role that pubs, diners and community centres used to play. The research on what actually reduces loneliness suggests they cannot do that job alone.
Life Changes
Why Reaching Out Feels Like an Imposition (And What to Do About It)
The math on asking a friend to hang out is worse in your head than it is in reality. Here's what the research says about the gap, and how to close it.
Places to Go
Why Being Social Costs More Than It Used To
The free places where people used to see each other without paying for the privilege are disappearing fastest in the places that need them most. What's left mostly has a price on it.
Tools & Apps
What Texting Your Friends Actually Does For You
Group chats and social media keep old friendships alive, but the research is specific about what they can't do instead. A look at what online contact substitutes for and what it doesn't.
Work & Remote Life
Working From Home Alone Isn't the Same as Being Lonely — Until It Is
Working from home means more hours alone, but alone and lonely aren't the same thing. The distinction matters, and remote workers keep confusing which one they've got.
June 20265
Making Friends
Retirement Doesn't End a Social Life. It Deletes the Structure That Ran It
A new longitudinal study on isolation, loneliness and well-being in older adults points at retirement as the moment structural isolation quietly turns into felt loneliness, and what actually rebuilds the structure.
Family & Parents
Why Wanting To See People Isn't Enough To Get You Out
Most people who feel lonely already know they should see someone. The hard part is the sending of the text, not the seeing. What the research on behavioural activation says about closing that gap.
The Science
How Much Time Does It Actually Take to Not Be Lonely
The research suggests the amount of time required to fend off loneliness is smaller than it feels, and mostly about repetition rather than hours.
Work & Remote Life
The Friend You Stopped Texting
Drifting from a friend rarely has a reason. Reaching back out feels harder than it should, and the fix is smaller than most people expect.
Digital Life
The Person Who Always Sends the Text
In most friend groups, one person does the inviting. What that costs them, why it happens, and what changes when they stop.
May 20265
Digital Life
How Long to Give a New Group Before You Let It Go
A practical way to tell the difference between a group that needs more time and one that is never going to click, with a rough timeline for making the call.
Life Changes
When Your Schedule Isn't Yours to Plan Around
Most friendship advice assumes you can commit to the same evening every week. For shift workers, new parents, and anyone on call, that assumption is the whole problem.
Places to Go
What to Actually Say to a Neighbour, a Stranger, or Someone You Just Met
AARP found that people who talk to their neighbours are half as likely to be lonely as those who never do. The hard part isn't the idea. It's the first sentence. Here are some that work.
Making Friends
The Friendly Visitor Myth
The most common fix for loneliness — pair a lonely person with someone kind to talk to — turns out to be the weaker option in head-to-head trials. What beats it is more specific than 'be nice to someone.'
Work & Remote Life
Before Everyone Disappears: A May Guide to Surviving the Summer Social Scatter
The weeks before summer are when workplace contact quietly falls apart. Here is how to build one fixed recurring thing before the calendar does it for you.
April 20267
Work & Remote Life
The Recurring Lunch: What Actually Works When You Work From Home
Remote workers report more loneliness than anyone else in the workforce. A look at whether calendar habits and meetup apps can actually fix the specific problem of eating lunch alone.
Digital Life
The Free Places Disappeared. What's Left Often Costs Money.
Third places used to be free or nearly free. As they close, what replaces them tends to have a price. That has a real effect on who gets to be social.
Making Friends
Your Old Friends Can't Fix a New City
A new study finds that closeness to online contacts doesn't shield people from loneliness. For anyone who has just moved, that has a specific and uncomfortable implication.
Life Changes
Parallel Play Isn't Just for Toddlers
Why an activity that keeps your hands and eyes busy can make meeting people easier than a conversation ever will, and where to find one.
The Science
What Texting Someone Isn't Doing
Online contact can maintain a friendship, but it rarely builds one, and it does not replace the physical, unplanned run-ins that used to make up most of social life.
Places to Go
The Places You Used to Run Into People Are Closing
A study tracking twelve kinds of third place across the US found closures concentrated in exactly the communities that could least afford to lose them.
Making Friends
Rebuilding a Social Life After a Breakup: What Actually Helps
After a relationship ends, you often lose a social circle along with a partner. A look at what tools and routes can help rebuild it, and what they can't do for you.
March 20263
Family & Parents
When The Structure That Held Your Friendship Up Is Gone
Most adult friendships were built on a shared timetable — school gates, an office, a lecture hall. When that timetable disappears, the friendship does not usually end in an argument. Here is what the research says about rebuilding the scaffolding by hand.
Making Friends
The Weeknight Problem: Why 7pm on a Tuesday Is the Hardest Time to Be Social
Weekday evenings are when loneliness is worst and plans are hardest to make. Here's why, and a way to make Tuesdays work for you instead of against you.
The Science
Alone Is Not the Same as Lonely, and the Difference Matters
Isolation and loneliness are separate things with separate fixes. Here's how to tell which one you actually have, and what to do about each.