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Friday night frights.
The end of the work week has become become just another weeknight, with Americans now spending just 4% of their evenings with their friends, according to a depressing new study.
Late-night socializing after midnight — once a defining part of weekend social life — has all but vanished as well, dropping below 1% of their time, according to a recent study by Neal Caren from the Department of Sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Between the early 2000s and 2024, total expected weekly time with friends fell by more than half, according to the study, built using data from the American Time Use Survey.
In 2003, the first date of measured data, social life followed a predictable weekly “heartbeat,” Caren wrote.
Weekday evenings saw modest socializing, peaking at around 6 to 7% of time, which steadily built toward sharp weekend peaks of 9% on Friday and 12% on Saturday nights, the study found.
Late-night socializing past midnight was also common on weekends, according to the data.
But this isn’t just a COVID-19 story. Starting in the mid-2010s, Friday night social time saw a steep decline.
The share of Friday evening time spent with friends fell from 9% in 2003-2005 to 7% in 2017-2019, dropping to 4% during the post-pandemic years of 2022-24.
Friday night social interaction today barely exceeds a typical Thursday weeknight, the study found.
Saturday remains the most social night of the week, but its peak friend-time share dropped as well, from 12% in 2003-2005 to 7% in 2022-2024.
Saturday’s social peak today sits at around the same level Friday nights used to hold two decades ago, the study found.
Also stark is the disappearance of the late night, with socializing past midnight now all but gone for American adults.
Total expected weekly time with friends fell from roughly 350 minutes per week in 2003-2005 to about 170 minutes in 2022-2024, the study found.
This contraction occurred across the entire week and across all types of social activities, rather than shifting to different days or alternative activities.
These included socializing and social events, relaxing and watching TV with friends, arts and entertainment, sports and exercise, and other social activities.
The “homeward retreat,” as Caren described it, was most noticeable among younger, more-educated, and unmarried adults, with an outsized impact on single adults.
It comes as a separate chart found that almost every form of social activity in America has dropped over the last 30 years.
The percentage of American adults who entertained people at their home in the past year fell from 88% in 1995 to 67% in 2026, according to a study by Data for Progress.
The percentage of Americans who obtained a church or other place of worship in the past year fell from 74% to 54% in the same time period, and the percentage of those who gave or attended a dinner party fell from 70% to 57%.
In contrast, the percentage of those who played a home video game rose from 42% in 1995 to 64% in 2026, and those went to an exercise class rose from 18% to 32% in the same time period.