More than 20% of millennials claim to have no friends, poll finds

Author: Tim Balk

No new friends. No old friends. No friends... period?

More than 20% of millennials surveyed in a YouGov poll released this week claimed that they don’t have a single friend. And less than a third of Millennials said they have double-digit friends, according to the data, culled online in early July.

Even if younger Americans are overstating their isolation, the jarring numbers reflect long-term rising trends in loneliness. Studies have indicated that loneliness has myriad negative mental and physical health effects.

“Strong social relationships support mental health, and that ties into better immune function, reduced stress and less cardiovascular activation,” Debra Umberson, a professor of sociology at the University of Texas, told Time magazine in 2015.
​
Thirty percent of millennials reported feeling lonely always or often in the YouGov data, while 20% of Gen Xers and 15% of baby boomers said the same.

Read More: Here