To understand why people succeed or fail, look at their circle of friends. Like it or not, says economist Matthew Jackson, people’s fates are closely connected to their human networks.

People are meant to live in communities. It is our na­ture; it is in our genes and in our jeans. Being connected with other people is crucial to our happiness.

Do you feel lonely? If you do, you are not alone. While you may think it’s a personal mental health issue, the collective social impact is an epidemic.

Friendships made in school play a special part in young people’s development. They are more than just moral support, friends help them learn key social skills, and serve as a source of social support.

Relationships are quite different from the engaged-married-live-together-forever lockstep. The romantic friendship is a new feature in the relationship landscape of most conventional Americans, though not unknown in other cultures around the world.

Researchers have discovered a connection between Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram use and decreased well-being.

Your chances of forming online friendships depend mainly on the number of groups and organizations you join, not their types, according to a new analysis of six online social networks.

Social media sites can make us feel left out—and can actually inhibit intelligent thought, research shows. A new study takes a critical look not just at Facebook and other similar platforms, but at the peculiarities of the systems on which they operate.

Imagine that someone you care about is procrastinating in advance of a vital exam. If he fails the test, he will not be able to go to university, an eventuality of major consequence in his life. If positive encouragement doesn’t work, you might reverse strategy, making your friend feel so bad, so worried, so scared, that the only strategy left is that he starts studying like mad.

Good friendships seem worth celebrating. But for many of us, tensions can appear from time to time between being a good friend and doing “the right thing.”

In early November 2017, Brooks Fisher’s neighbor in Sonoma, California, pounded on his door at 2 a.m., rang the doorbell and shouted, “There’s a fire coming and you need to get out now! I can hear trees exploding!”

Strong sibling bonds can offset the negative effects of parental strife, according to a new study.

In 1906, the young Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung received a collection of essays from none other than the founder of psychoanalysis himself, Sigmund Freud.

Whether your relationships are as wonderful as you wish them to be or you feel that there is room for improvement, using metaphysical methods to manage and sustain them is as rewarding as is it empowering.

NPR reported on a survey about loneliness conducted by Cigna, a large health insurance company. Are Americans becoming lonelier?

It takes more than 200 hours before someone can be considered a close friend, according to a new study that explores how long it typically takes to move through the deepening stages of friendship.

When it comes to presenting yourself online – such as your profile pic for Facebook or even Tinder – which type of photo do you chose?

The nature and ethics of “fake news” has become a subject of widespread concern. But, for many of us, the issue is much more personal: What are we to do when a cranky uncle or an otherwise pleasant old friend persists in populating our news feeds with a stream of posts that can run deeply contrary to our own values?

Independence is glorified in North American culture as a symbol of strength. As a society, we value individual achievement and extol self-reliance.

New research suggests we can “pick up” good and bad moods from friends, but not depression. “We investigated whether there is evidence for the individual components of mood (such as appetite, tiredness, and sleep) spreading through US adolescent friendship networks..."

Among older adults, friendships are actually a stronger predictor of health and happiness than relationships with family members, research shows.

Avoiding Trump supporters only increases our already dangerous polarization. Here’s how to really listen and find compassion.

For a long time, friendships between gay men and straight men – what some now call “bromosexual” friendships – were uncommon.