25 studies · every one linked to its source

The science of social decay.

Friendships rarely end in a falling-out. They lapse — the shared context evaporates, nobody initiates, and the loss goes unnoticed because the network stays the same size. The research on how that happens, and on what actually opposes it, is better than most people realise.

Every study below has its own page with the finding, the method, what it doesn’t show, and what we did about it — including the ones that cut against us. Where a finding is contested or the effect is small, it says so.