Americans have fewer friends than they did 30 years ago, new poll finds

• A new poll hints at how American friendship habits may have changed since 1990.
• Just 13% of those polled said they had 10 or more close friends, down from 33% in a 1990 survey.
• Friendships are also ending over political disagreements and pandemic strain, the study found.

Americans are experiencing a crisis of friendlessness, a new poll released this week found.

The Survey Center on American Life spoke with more than 2,000 US adults ages 18 and older found people seemed to be seeing their social circles decline, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Only 13% of those polled said they had more than 10 close friends. This is in contrast to a 1990 Gallup poll, in which a third of US adults said they had 10 or more close friends.

There's more - three decades ago, 75% of the 1,226 people Gallup surveyed over the phone said they had a best friend. That number in this year's poll was 59%.

The survey also found evidence that friendships were particularly hard during the pandemic. Nearly half of the 2,019 people polled said they lost touch with at least a few friends over the past 12 months, and one in 10 people polled said they lost touch with most of their friends.

Politics may be a key reason friendships were ending. Of those surveyed, 20% of Democrats and 10% of Republicans polled said they ended a friendship over a political disagreement. And of the 300 people surveyed who said they ended a friendship over politics, 22% said former President Donald Trump was the reason.

But it's not all doom and gloom. About half of the people surveyed also said they made at least one new friend during the past year.

"The COVID-19 pandemic is the most obvious culprit in the national friendship decline, but broader structural forces may be playing a more important role," the study author Daniel Cox wrote in the paper's introduction.

Cox attributed the decline of Americans' social circles to three major reasons. First, he posited that Americans were marrying later and becoming more "geographically mobile," leading to more self-isolation and loneliness. Cox also said parents spending more time with their children might have "crowded" out other relationships like friendships. He noted, too, that with people spending more time working or traveling for work, keeping friendships going might be getting tougher.

"In fact, perhaps reflecting its central place in the hierarchy of American social life, Americans are now more likely to make friends at work than any other way - including at school, in their neighborhood, at their place of worship, or even through existing friends," Cox wrote.