Social connection in the US has been in decline for decades, and today, we are spending less time with other people than at any point in the past 60 years. Although the trend is international, it’s particularly concerning for America, which ranked 118 out of 191 countries on the 2024 Global Social Capital Index. The US surgeon general named increasing social isolation as a “critical public health concern” (PDF), and some have gone so far as to describe this moment as “a crisis of connection.”
Declining levels of social connection are worrying because social connection is critical to a thriving society (PDF). Greater levels of social connection are not only associated with higher levels of happiness—they also support a healthy, functioning democracy (PDF). Research has also found that social connection is a key predictor of upward economic mobility.
To boost social connection, we first need to understand how to measure it. Here we highlight several ways to measure social connection in your community and offer resources for getting started.
Selecting the right metric is key to understanding social connection in your community
Social connection encompasses both the quantity and quality (PDF) of our interactions and relationships with other people. It’s sometimes used interchangeably with social capital, which is the idea that our networks and relationships have inherent value.
Though social connection measures our relationships with others, social capital measures the resources and benefits accessible through those connections. Relationships with neighbors can lead to favors, like pet sitting; relationships with colleagues can lead to new job opportunities; and relationships with institutions like churches or neighborhood organizations can result in better preparedness and greater resilience in times of crisis.
Many definitions of social connection and social capital exist, which means there are equally as many ways to measure both concepts. Some common measures focus on individual perceptions and social participation (like the number of friends people have and whether they report feeling lonely) as well as community involvement (such as membership in Rotary Clubs, sports leagues, and churches, or how often people report volunteering or donating to charitable causes).
The Urban Institute’s Upward Mobility Data Dashboard provides data for metrics related to 24 evidence-based predictors of upward mobility, such as financial security, housing affordability, access to health services, and political participation. Social capital is 1 of the 24 predictors and is measured using the following two metrics:
- The number of membership associations per 10,000 people in a community, which reflects the opportunities available for community members to build social connections and capital. This metric includes membership associations such as trade unions, churches, and sports clubs.
- Economic connectedness, or the extent to which people with low and high incomes are friends with one another (as measured by researchers at Opportunity Insights using data from Facebook).
To get an accurate sense of social connection in your community, selecting the right metric—or set of metrics—is key. When we analyze the first metric—the number of membership organizations per 10,000 residents in each county as of 2022—we see counties in the western half of the country, and particularly the Southwest, have the fewest membership organizations. Midwestern counties tend to have more opportunities for residents to be part of associations.
But when we look at the second metric—economic connectedness as measured by Facebook friendships—counties in the South, particularly South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, fare poorly but have relatively more opportunities for residents to participate in civic life. These findings are consistent with other research on this topic, which has found that “a single community can exhibit different levels of social capital depending on the concept being measured.”
Though it’s possible the variation in the two social capital measures is a result of data limitations—for instance, the first metric might not be capturing smaller or less formal groups, and the second might not be reflective of actual, real-life relationships—it’s also likely that multiple metrics matter when it comes to measuring a concept as complex as social connection.
Resources for measuring social connection in your community
Although tracking the national evolution of social connection with standardized data is important, social connection is ultimately about interactions and relationships, which are generally local and place based. This means you should look to members of your community themselves to understand the best way to measure social connection locally.
The Foundation for Social Connection collates an inventory of social connection measurement tools, including instruments such as belonging barometers, loneliness scales, and ways to measure neighborhood cohesion, which may help you get started.
However, many of these tools require collecting original data through administering questionaries or conducting interviews. For those looking for a quicker way to explore social connection in the US, in addition to the Upward Mobility Data Dashboard, the following resources offer a user-friendly starting point:
- At the national level, the American Time Use Survey reports the average number of hours per day that people spend engaged in activities such as caring for and helping nonhousehold members; organizational, civic, and religious activities (including volunteering); and socializing and communicating.
- At the state level, the National Conference on Citizenship produces a Civic Health Index for each state that includes measures of social connectedness, community engagement, and political action and participation.
- At the county level, Opportunity Insights’ Social Capital Atlas provides a number of metrics measuring social capital, including the cohesiveness of friend groups and friendships, civic engagement, and the economic connectedness metric used in the Upward Mobility Data Dashboard.
- At the neighborhood (census tract) level, the Aspen Institute’s Social Trust Index allows users to explore how their neighborhoods rank on trusting behaviors, intentions, and spaces. It also offers suggestions for how users can lean into their neighborhoods’ strengths and take on trust-weaving roles from examples of other communities, such as how a woman in Connecticut hosted block parties to build social capital in the wake of hate messages at the local middle school, or how churches in St. Paul, Minnesota, are building “Sacred Settlements” of tiny homes for neighbors who were living on the streets.
Together, these and other resources can help local stakeholders better understand the state of social connection nationwide and take first steps toward regenerating connection in their communities.
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