Why Socializing Less Is Impacting American Health: What You Need to Know

Americans are still spending less time outside their homes doing things like socializing and eating out than they did before the COVID-19 pandemic, new research has revealed.

The study, published this week in the Journal of the American Planning Association, found that people spend about an hour more inside the home each day compared to pre-pandemic behavior.

“We expected work from home [time to increase] and work out of the house being way down,” Eric Morris, PhD, a professor and urban planning expert at Clemson University and lead author of the new report, told Health. “That’s been documented, and it’s not a novel contribution of our research. But I think we were surprised at the amount of cessation of the other activities [outside the home].”

The report adds to growing concerns about whether Americans are getting enough social connection. Last year, the Surgeon General warned about an “epidemic of loneliness” in the United States, and experts said the changes implemented during the pandemic may have exacerbated the situation. Earlier this month, research from Gallup concluded that one-fifth of Americans experience daily loneliness.

“Social connection is increasingly being recognized as a public health issue because of the major implications it has for health and wellness,” Sophie Lazarus, PhD, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral health at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, told Health. “Lack of social connections is related to negative physical and mental health outcomes.”

For the new study, Morris and his team analyzed data from the American Time Use Survey. It included responses from 34,000 Americans who answered questions about how they spent their time in 2019 (pre-pandemic), 2021 (during the pandemic), and 2022 and 2023 (post-pandemic).

The researchers looked at respondents’ time spent doing several activities in and out of the home. They found that overall time outside the home dropped by about 53 minutes daily since 2019.

Working from home explained part of this trend, the study found, but it didn’t account for all of the increased time spent at home. Researchers found that respondents also spent less time doing the following activities:

Time spent traveling by foot (not including leisure or dog walking), by car, or by public transportation also decreased by 12 minutes a day, which couldn’t be attributed solely to a reduction in commuting.

By contrast, time spent doing many in-home activities increased, including practicing religion, eating and drinking, working from home, doing household chores, and sleeping.

Neither loneliness nor social isolation should go unaddressed, experts said. “Loneliness is the subjective experience of being alone or disconnected from others,” Lazarus said. “You can be lonely even if you have adequate social contact. Social isolation is the objective state of having few social contacts or interactions.”

While being able to connect online may seem like a fix for loneliness or social isolation, Lazarus said, “there are aspects of social interactions, such as nonverbal cues and physical touch, that you simply cannot get online.”

Getting less social connection can affect one’s mental and physical health. “It increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, dementia, depression, anxiety, and suicide,” Lazarus said. “Lack of social connection is related to increased mortality on par with more widely recognized risks such as smoking, excessive drinking, or obesity.”

When social isolation starts to affect a person’s health, they may notice a range of symptoms, Dawn Potter, PsyD, a psychologist at the Center for Adult Behavioral Health at Cleveland Clinic, told Health. “It could lead to more mood disorders—depression specifically—and more anxiety disorders too,” she explained.

Some warning signs that should prompt you to reconsider how much time you’re spending at home, she added, include “an increase in anxiety, a decrease in self-esteem, a decrease in positive emotions, a decrease in motivation, and an increase in avoidant behaviors.”

It can be especially challenging for people experiencing depression or anxiety to commit to spending more time outside their home for two main reasons, Potter added. People experiencing depression may feel that activities outside the home may not bring them any joy or may not be meaningful, while those with anxiety may worry that spending more time outside—for instance, going for a run outside—may endanger them or make them otherwise upset or uncomfortable.

If you think you might benefit from spending more time outside your home, it’s a good idea to start small rather than jumping back into your pre-pandemic routines all at once, Potter pointed out. “We don’t have to go fully back to the way we were living before,” she said.

The initial steps could involve making plans to have dinner or see a movie with a friend. If you're a remote worker but have the option to go into your office space occasionally, it may be worth spending more time around your coworkers.

You could even "push yourself to make a little bit of conversation with the cashier at the grocery store," Potter said.

Experts say there's no one-size-fits-all answer for how much time you need to spend outside your home to feel your best. Reconfiguring your out-of-home commitments may take some trial and error.

If you've tried ramping up your social commitments but you're still not feeling well, Potter recommended checking in with a healthcare provider to see if treatments like therapy or medication may be needed. "Help is out there," she said. "It can get better even if things seem insurmountable."