Doing almost anything is better with friends, research finds

Richard Sima

Social interactions are essential for our well-being and happiness, research has shown. And now a large study supports that finding and suggests there are many ways to squeeze in more companionship - and happiness - into our busy lives.

The study found that across more than 80 different types of activities, people reported being happier doing almost anything with other people than doing it alone.

The activities ranged from the mundane - getting gas, doing homework, commuting, grocery shopping - to ones that may not seem inherently social, such as reading, doing car repairs or managing finances.

“What we see is that participants consistently rate every common daily activity as more enjoyable when they’re interacting with somebody else,” said Elizabeth Dunn, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia and senior author of the study, published in August in Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Even researchers who study the positive effects of social interactions did not expect the effects to be so widespread.

“I was still surprised by the magnitude and extremity of the effects,” said Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago who researches how we often underestimate the impact of socializing and was not involved in the study.

Because so many different activities with others are associated with a happiness boost, the research “suggests that we are leaving some happiness on the table by engaging in everyday activities alone,” Dunn said.

A near-universal happiness boost

The researchers took advantage of a rich dataset from the American Time Use Survey, conducted by the Census Bureau, which asks participants how they spent the previous day. In all, they analyzed how more than 40,000 participants felt - and whether they interacted with others - during more than 100,000 instances when they were doing various activities.

The data, collected in 2010, 2012, 2013 and 2021, varied in which activities were associated with the biggest boost in happiness when conducted with others. But it is still “striking” how the general effect holds even across those very different time periods, Dunn said.

Every activity was significantly more enjoyable with others than alone in at least one of the years. The only exception was in 2021 when socializing while doing kitchen and food cleanup had a negative association with happiness than when done alone.

The activities we more often do with others seem to be associated with the most benefits, such as eating or drinking, walking, running and playing games.

But the benefits also applied to the activities that participants most frequently did alone, such as reading, arts and crafts, and commuting.

“That’s surprising to most people, and it continues to add to this body of work about how surprisingly positive social interaction is,” Epley said.

However, researchers noted that this is descriptive data, not causal: There could be many other reasons for the difference in happiness levels. Reading alone at home might look very dissimilar from reading with others at a book club, for example.

But the research matches experimental data from other studies on how socializing tends to make us happier, Epley said.

This study also “adds a dimension that you’re not going to get in laboratory research” because of the sheer breadth of activities that can’t readily be tested, such as making food, doing job searches, managing finances or using drugs and tobacco, he said.

In the study, social interactions did not have to be in-person and could include a phone call, though the survey did not ask participants to specify.

But other research shows that in-person interactions are “clearly the best overall in terms of people’s mood and feelings of connection,” Dunn said. But if it can’t be in-person, having some element of voice seems to be important, she said.

The study did not have personality data, thus it could not say if both introverts and extroverts benefit from social interactions, but other research has shown that both groups do.

While meaningful social interactions are great for improving our well-being, the context in which they are happening is important, said Mahnaz Roshanaei, a researcher in the Stanford University communication department who was not involved in the study.

In a 2024 study, Roshanaei and her colleagues tracked the social interactions of more than 2,800 college students for over three years, pinging them throughout the day to ask about meaningful social interactions, the surrounding context and how they were feeling.

Roshanaei found that what the students were doing and where mattered to how they felt after the meaningful social interactions. For example, students had less of an emotional well-being bump when they had meaningful interactions while eating or studying than while resting.

Though there are methodological differences between these two studies, “social interaction matters, but context matters as well,” Roshanaei said.

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How to get more social

Even though socializing is a well-known way to increase our happiness, we might not always seek it out.

This is in part because of “undersociality,” where we underestimate how likely others are to respond positively to our overtures for connection.

“You only learn from the experiences you have and not from the experiences you don’t,” Epley said. We won’t know what we missed out on from not interacting with someone, he said.

Here are some suggestions from experts.

Set aside time in your calendar.

If you have a busy life, “socializing can become a co-ordination problem,” so setting aside time on your calendar is “incredibly helpful,” Dunn said.

Dunn has blocked off time to work in a coffee shop with four close friends. “It’s just parallel play like toddlers do in the sense that we are each doing our own thing,” she said, but it still allows for some socializing.

She and her husband have also extended an open invitation for their parents to takeout sushi every Friday to make get-togethers easier.

“It does take that little bit of extra planning, but I think our data and my experience definitely point to the value of taking that extra moment to set up these opportunities for social interaction,” Dunn said.

Turn the boring and mundane into something more.

Catch up with a friend, whether over the phone or in-person, while doing mundane activities such as running errands and cleaning, and other chores, the research suggests.

Commuting may be a perfect happiness-draining activity that can be improved with company.

“I would argue finding ways to commute with other people is a really good idea because that’s the time of our day where we typically spend alone” and is rather unhappy, Dunn said.

Seek out opportunities to connect

It’s been long established in well-being research that “happiness is better predicted by the frequency of positive experiences than it is by the intensity of them,” Epley said.

“Having a good life is about stringing together as many of these positive activities as we can. So it becomes a habit,” he said.

Epley makes it a point to talk to people when he’s pumping gas and sees it as an opportunity to turn an otherwise isolating moment into one of social connection.

This research shows “you should take those opportunities everywhere you can find them,” he said.