Half of Britons (51%) say they find it difficult to make new friends, the YouGov Friendship Study can reveal. A third (35%) find making friends ‘fairly difficult’ and 16% say it’s ‘very difficult' for them, while 8% of Britons find it very easy to make friends and a further third (36%) say it’s fairly easy.
The older people are, the easier they find it to make new friends: 38% of the youngest Britons (16-24 year olds) say it’s easy for them to make friends, compared to 47% of those aged 60 or older.
Two thirds (66%) of extroverted Britons find it fairly or very easy to make new friends, compared to 26% of introverted Britons who say the same.
Despite the past year being dominated by lockdowns, a third of Britons (34%) say they’ve made a new friend in that period. This applies to three in ten (31%) of those who describe themselves as introverts.
Regardless of being the most likely to say they struggle to make friends, two-thirds of young Britons aged 16-24 (67%) say they’ve made a new friend in the past year, which is significantly higher compared to other age groups. Even among those 60 and older - who were most vulnerable to coronavirus and were most likely to need to isolate – a fifth (21%) said they made new friends within the last year.
A third of Britons (36%) say they last made a new friend between one and five years ago and 15% say the last time they made a new friend was more than five years ago.
See full results here
