Credit: Getty
Family and Friends
“People are pruning”: are you in a friendship recession?
By Fiona Cowood
3 years ago
2 min read
Is the drop in our number of friendships a sign of social maturity or proof that the world is lonelier than ever, asks Fiona Cowood
Ellie*, 23, says she can’t remember much about the final stretch of her engineering degree. The Covid pandemic hit towards the end of her second year, so she saw out the last 15 months of the course from her childhood bedroom, watched over by cuddly toys crammed onto a floating shelf above her desk.
After graduating, she was selected for a graduate trainee scheme in September 2021, where the onboarding process was handled remotely. Ellie finally cleared out the cuddly toys, but on her first day, she was back at the same old desk, this time in a crisp white shirt facing her new company laptop.
In between video calls with IT and new colleagues, she tried to get to know her fellow cohort of first-jobbers via virtual meet-ups and Teams chats. But it was hard going.
“It just felt lame,” says Ellie. “Before Covid, I was part of this huge group of mates at uni. We were always out and between studying and working part-time in a restaurant, I never had much time to myself. Now, apart from my job, that’s all I have. It’s lonely.”
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