Young Men Don't Socialize as Much as They Used To - But Not for Lack of Trying
There’s clear appetite for more in-person spaces across U.S. neighborhoods
By many measures, young people are socializing less now than in the past. They are drinking and partying less, driving less, dating less, and interacting with each other less in person. Yet when you account for their online lives, young men are “socializing” plenty. Recent survey research by the Young Men Research Project suggests this online socializing is a false substitute, and that young men have plenty of appetite for the real thing.
Online socialization is a poor substitute
In YMRP’s summer 2025 research, large shares of men ages 18-29 reported using platforms built for direct communication and community. About one in three young men said they regularly use Discord; 60 percent use Instagram, and one in three use Reddit. Virtually all use at least a few platforms to stay connected.
It isn’t working.
Young men who use even the most “social” of the social media platforms reported overwhelming levels of loneliness, especially compared to men in marriages or serious relationships, or those with other forms of in-person connection (like going to church). To combat loneliness, Discord, Reddit, gaming, and other forms of digital community do not appear to be solid substitutes for in-person interaction.
From July 1, 2025 Young Men Research Project analysis.
Of course, plenty of young men meet friends online, forming friendships that they cherish and hold onto for years. When asked about them, young men will fondly recall these connections. But these same individuals report higher levels of loneliness than others.
Parasocial relationships invite immiseration
The latest round of research from YMRP explored this relationship in more detail. A crucial feature of these communities is that they are typically organized around a shared interest—a video game, a hobby, or, more frequently, around a particular creator. Many YouTubers with a large enough audience have curated Discord servers, as do well-known personalities from podcasting, music, and journalism. And every social network, from Instagram (used by almost 70 percent of young men) to Reddit (37 percent) to Discord (37 percent), algorithmically feeds people content that they’re supposed to find compelling, impressive, worthy of reaction.
As a result, any social media platform invites imbalanced comparisons—be it to the major accounts around which communities are organized, or to the most impressive and share-worthy members of those communities.
Consequently, young men say the people they see on social media generally appear to be “better” than them.
About two-thirds of young men say the people they follow and interact with on social media are “wealthier than me” and “more successful than me,” and more than half say they believe the people they follow are “more attractive than me.” In contrast, real-life relationships are the opposite—about two-thirds of young men say people they hang out with in real-life are “about as” wealthy, successful, and attractive as they are. The individuals young men interact with on social media invite unflattering comparisons between the typical user and the prominent accounts around which most social networks are organized. In contrast, real-life social interaction appears to generally happen on a more equal footing. The people young men actually interact with tend to be better matches in terms of their wealth, status, and attractiveness.
Young men want the real things
YMRP’s latest survey shows plenty of young men are under no illusion about what they’re missing: they want more opportunities to bond in-person. The survey asked if young men felt their neighborhood had not enough of, about enough of, or too many of several key amenities such as parks, concert venues, gyms, and bars. While many young men were satisfied with the availability of these amenities in their neighborhoods, fully 54 percent said their area needed more parks, 44 percent said this of concert venues, 41 percent said this of gyms, and 36 percent said this of bars. Virtually none said their neighborhood was over-abundant in these amenities (though respondents were significantly more likely to say their neighborhood had “too many” music venues or bars).
Those living in rural areas were slightly more likely to say their neighborhoods needed more of these key amenities. Those earning less, i.e., those typically situated in low-income neighborhoods, were no more or less hungry for these amenities than other groups. Contrary to the belief that young men in these communities view such amenities as unaffordable and, as such, do not want them, these results show a clear desire for improved access. There is no less demand for such among those who use platforms like Discord or Reddit daily, nor across a variety of other key demographic factors.
Similarly, among the roughly 70 percent of young men who say they don’t currently go to the gym at all, only 53 percent said their neighborhood currently had an adequate supply of gyms, and 37 percent said they wanted more of them in their neighborhoods. Fully 47 percent of young Black men and 54 percent of young Hispanic men say they wish their neighborhoods had more places to exercise. Across these groups, “third spaces” like parks were overwhelmingly in demand.
Longitudinal studies of technology’s impacts show young people increasingly try to substitute online socializing with in-person socializing. Our ongoing research shows it is a paltry substitute indeed. The people young men socialize with online are, by dint of algorithmic preference, deeply unlike the real people one would encounter in real life.
But young men seem to be aware of this. There is ample demand for better amenities like parks and gyms. As young people age and leave environments where they have readier access to these spaces (like a college campus) and move to the suburbs, this demand is likely to continue to grow. YMRP research continues to suggest there is unmet demand for physical amenities to improve the lives of young people in America.