The Archive
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179 articles · page 2 of 6
March 20262
Tools & Apps
The Coffee Shop Won't Fix What Remote Work Broke
A new Science study says remote work explains a third of the rise in isolation since 2019. The usual fix -- go work from a café -- doesn't do what people think it does.
Life Changes
The Text You're Not Sending Is Probably Wanted
Reaching out feels like imposing on someone else's time. The research on who actually wants to be asked says the opposite is true.
February 20265
The Science
What the Loneliness Trials Say About Which App to Use
Two of the only randomised trials of loneliness interventions point to the same lesson: structure beats contact. Here's what that means for choosing between Buffet, Timeleft, and Meetup.
Life Changes
What a Year of Small Effort Actually Buys You
A new federal survey breaks down who is lonely in America. The more useful question is what changes if you show up somewhere, on purpose, for a year rather than a night.
The Science
The People You Already Know Are the Fastest Way Out of Loneliness
A new cross-national study on loneliness points, again, at existing relationships rather than new ones. Here's why texting the friend you drifted from beats joining something new.
Places to Go
Where Your Friends Go After a Breakup
A breakup doesn't just cost you a partner. It often costs you a social calendar built around someone else's friends and someone else's habits. Here's how to rebuild the places, not just the people.
Digital Life
Why Reaching Out Feels Like an Imposition (And What To Do About It Anyway)
The specific fear that stops people from texting a friend first isn't shyness. It's a miscalculation about how welcome the message will be, and it has a fix.
January 20267
Work & Remote Life
What to Actually Say When Work Feels Lonely
Remote and hybrid work removed the small talk that used to build friendships by accident. Here are actual lines to use when you want to make it happen on purpose.
Making Friends
What Texting Someone Cannot Do for You
AI chatbots and messaging keep a friendship on life support, but the research on what they actually replace is more specific and less reassuring than it sounds.
Family & Parents
Alone With the Baby, Lonely Anyway
New parents are almost never physically alone, and yet loneliness among mothers of young children runs higher than almost any other group. Here's why those are different problems, and what to do about each one.
Life Changes
When You Can't Promise Next Tuesday
For shift workers, freelancers, and parents of unpredictable kids, the usual advice to 'join a regular group' assumes a schedule you don't have. Here's what actually works when your time isn't yours to give.
Tools & Apps
The Signs a Group Isn't Going to Become Your People
Not every group you join turns into a social life. Here is how to tell the difference between a slow start and a dead end, and what to do once you know.
Places to Go
A Year of Meetup, Timeleft, and a Running Club: What Actually Changed
A tool-by-tool look at what a year of low-effort, repeated attendance actually produces, and where each route to meeting people quietly fails.
Digital Life
The Two Weeks Before Everyone's Calendar Fills Back Up
Right now, in the first two weeks of January, more people than usual have empty evenings. Here's how to use that window before it closes, instead of making a resolution that quietly dies by week three.
December 20258
Life Changes
Your New Town Might Have Fewer Places to Meet People Than It Used To
A new study mapped where third places have closed across the U.S. between 2019 and 2021. For anyone who has just moved, that map is worth checking before you blame yourself for not having made friends yet.
Family & Parents
The Weekday Evening Is Where Parents' Social Lives Go to Die
Why 6pm to 9pm on a Tuesday is the hardest window to fill with anyone but your own household, and what actually fits inside it.
Tools & Apps
The Real Cost of Making a New Friend
Most ways of meeting people now cost money — a class, a run club kit, an app subscription, a dinner. That filter shapes who shows up, and it deserves to be named plainly.
The Science
What the New Remote Work Study Actually Found About Loneliness
A 2025 study on remote work and loneliness confirms what many people already suspect, but it also draws a line most coverage misses: isolation and loneliness are not the same problem, and they need different fixes.
Life Changes
The Real Reason Remote Work Makes People Lonely
A new nationally representative study links remote work to loneliness. The likelier culprit isn't the empty office — it's that nothing in a remote week forces contact with anyone.
Making Friends
What Actually Rebuilds a Social Life After You Move
Moving breaks the social structures you didn't know were doing the work. Here's what replaces them, and how long it actually takes.
Work & Remote Life
The Cost of Being the One Who Always Organises
If you're the person who always sends the group chat message and books the table, remote work has quietly made your job harder and more essential. Here's why, and what to do about it.
Making Friends
Why a Shared Task Makes It Easier to Talk to Strangers
Doing something with your hands or your feet lowers the pressure to perform conversation. Here's how to pick an activity that actually produces friendship, not just company.
November 20257
The Science
Why the Same Coffee Shop, Every Week, Actually Works
Going to the same place at the same time, week after week, does more for loneliness than most advice suggests. Here's the research behind why repetition beats novelty, and what it takes to actually keep it up.
Making Friends
What the Dog Park Actually Offers a Lonely Person
Dog parks tick most of the boxes for a working third place — but they only pay off if you show up on a schedule, not when the mood strikes.
Places to Go
Why Wanting to Go Out Is Not the Same as Going
The gap between wanting connection and actually showing up is not a courage problem. It is usually a structure problem, and the research points to a specific fix.
Tools & Apps
The Myth That Meeting More People Fixes Loneliness
Most apps built for loneliness are optimized for the first meeting. The evidence says the first meeting is the least important part.
Digital Life
The One-Off Dinner Apps: What They're Actually Good For
Apps that match you with strangers for a single meal or meetup are having a moment. Here's what the research on friendship actually says they can and can't do.
The Science
The Friend You Have to Choose to Keep
A new federal survey finds more than a third of U.S. adults are moderately or severely lonely. The harder cases aren't people with no friends — they're friendships that used to run on autopilot and now don't.
Work & Remote Life
Meeting More People Is Not the Fix
The common advice for remote workers is to network more and meet new people. The research points somewhere more boring and more useful: seeing the same few people, on a schedule.
October 20251
Places to Go
What a Year of Showing Up Actually Buys You
Turning up to the same place, same time, most weeks, for a year does something specific to a social life — and it is not what most advice implies.