Friendship: Awareness
Understand what friendship means, what's possible, and where you stand. About 15 minutes.
Friendship is one of the strongest predictors of wellbeing across the lifespan. A meta-analysis of 148 studies covering over 300,000 people found that those with strong social relationships had a 50% higher likelihood of survival over a given follow-up period. The health risk of weak social ties is comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day and exceeds the risks associated with obesity or physical inactivity.
The benefits extend well beyond physical health. A 2023 Pew Research survey found that 61% of US adults consider close friendships extremely or very important for a fulfilling life – a higher proportion than for marriage (23%), having children (26%), or having money (24%). Longitudinal research on cognitive ageing suggests that frequent contact with friends is associated with slower cognitive decline, and the effect appears to be stronger for friends than for family members.
Despite this, friendship is in decline across much of the developed world. The percentage of American adults reporting no close friends tripled from 3% in 1990 to 12% in 2021, while those with ten or more close friends fell from 33% to 13%. Similar trends have been documented in the UK, Australia, and Japan. This means that even modest investment in friendship puts you ahead of a growing portion of the population.
Friendship also compounds over time. Research on social capital consistently finds that the longest-standing friendships provide the most emotional support, the broadest access to information and opportunities, and the strongest buffer against stress. Starting early and maintaining friendships matters more than having many of them at any one point.
People pursue friendship for different reasons. This site scores every friendship intervention across three core values. Later, you'll set your own weighting across these three values, and the site will rank interventions by how well they deliver on the things you actually care about.
Depth
Close friendships built on high trust, vulnerability, and mutual understanding. People who lean towards this value invest heavily in a smaller number of relationships where they can share honestly, rely on each other during difficult periods, and feel fully known. Depth tends to require regular one-on-one time, emotional availability, and a willingness to have hard conversations.
Breadth
A diverse network of friendships spanning different contexts, communities, and walks of life. People who lean towards this value enjoy meeting new people, maintaining ties across settings – work, hobbies, neighbourhoods, online communities – and connecting others who might benefit from knowing each other. Breadth brings access to varied perspectives, information, and social opportunities.
Growth
Friendships that challenge you to improve, learn, and develop as a person. People who lean towards this value seek out friends who hold them accountable, introduce them to new ideas, give honest feedback, and push them beyond their comfort zone. Growth-oriented friendships often centre on shared projects, intellectual discussion, or mutual goal-setting.
The Top 0.1% band represents roughly 1 in 1,000 people. To give you a sense of what that looks like for each friendship value:
C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien met at Oxford in 1926 and remained close friends for over 30 years through the Inklings, a literary group that met weekly to read and critique each other's work. Tolkien was instrumental in Lewis's conversion to Christianity – a pivotal moment in Lewis's life. Lewis, in turn, provided years of encouragement that kept Tolkien working on The Lord of the Rings during long periods of doubt. Their friendship weathered significant disagreements, including over Lewis's marriage and theological differences, and both men described it as one of the most important relationships of their lives.
Keith Ferrazzi built a career around the deliberate practice of relationship-building. His book Never Eat Alone describes his system for maintaining genuine connections with thousands of people across industries and countries. Ferrazzi appears to treat relationship maintenance as a structured discipline – tracking contacts, reaching out regularly, and actively looking for ways to help people in his network before asking for anything in return. He is widely cited as an example of someone who combines very large social networks with authentic personal investment in each connection.
Benjamin Franklin founded the Junto in 1727, a mutual improvement club of 12 friends drawn from different trades in Philadelphia. Members met weekly to discuss questions of morals, politics, and natural philosophy, and held each other accountable to personal development goals. The group ran for over 30 years and generated several lasting civic institutions, including a lending library that became the Library Company of Philadelphia and an academy that eventually became the University of Pennsylvania. Franklin credited the Junto with shaping much of his intellectual development.
Depth
Breadth
Growth
Your estimated position
Percentiles are estimates based on published population data on friendship behaviour among adults. Items without reliable population benchmarks are not scored.
You now understand why friendship matters, what different people get out of it, what's achievable, and where you currently stand. The final step is to set your personal value weightings and see which interventions are the best fit for you.
On the interventions page, adjust the sliders to reflect how much you care about depth, breadth, and growth. The table will re-rank interventions to match your priorities.
Awareness assessment complete
You've built your foundation in Friendship. Your self-assessment and value weightings are saved.
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