Why in-person friendships are better for health than virtual pals

María Branyas, who, at 117, is the oldest known living person on Earth, believes that one of the secrets to a long and healthy life lies in having “a good connection with friends and family.”

A growing body of research shows the “supercentenarian” might be onto something. It’s long been known that people who enjoy high-quality friendships have better health — the effect is so strong it’s comparable to the longevity benefit of eating a Mediterranean diet.

But simply having good friends and feeling connected isn’t enough. Research suggests that for our health to truly thrive, we need to physically meet with our friends on a regular basis.

A recent study analyzed data from nearly 13,000 volunteers, examining not only their number of friends, but also whether they saw each other. Having face-to-face contact with friends at least once per week was a strong predictor of better physical and mental health. Calling or texting didn’t bring similar benefits, says Eric Kim, professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia and the study’s lead author.

Data collected from a gerontological study in Japan showed that men who spent little time with their friends — less than a few times per year — had a 30% higher mortality risk than those who enjoyed more frequent contact.

While these studies show only an association — it could be that healthy people have more energy to spend time with friends — researchers believe the relationship between in-person friendships and better health is worth thinking about. The findings come as more people increasingly opt out of traditional, in-person socializing. According to data from the American Time Use Survey, the average time spent with friends decreased from 60 minutes per day in 2003 to a mere 34 minutes in 2019.

“In the U.S., there’s a friendship recession,” Kim says.

Humans are social animals, and being surrounded by friendly others lowers our risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, even cancer. “Pretty much any way you cut it, any way you measure it, being more socially connected is associated with better health,” says Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a neuroscientist at Brigham Young University.

One reason friendship is so vital for health is rather straightforward. Friends, Kim says, are “checking up on people and encouraging people to exercise or eat healthy.” They can also, he says, provide important information, such as “where can I get a flu shot?”

Studies have found that people who are socially isolated produce more cortisol throughout the day, which has been associated with cardiovascular disease and a higher overall mortality risk. “We are social species, we’re just primed to connect to others,” says Oliver Huxhold, developmental psychologist at the German Centre of Gerontology.

The benefits of face-to-face interactions may be related to smell. When our noses pick up the body odor of other people, for example, we tend to pick up their emotions, too: from anxiety and fear to happiness.

In one experiment, researchers applied electrodes to the faces of volunteers and asked them to sniff samples of sweat of people who had previously watched either happy video (“The Jungle Book”) or neutral videos (the weather forecast.) After inhaling the body odor of cheerful people, the volunteers’ facial muscles twitched in a way that suggested they felt happier, too.

Communication via body odor happens mostly on a subconscious level, and as such it may be sometime more honest than words, says Jasper de Groot, behavioral scientist at Radboud University in the Netherlands and the study’s author. “It may help you empathize with the other person,” he says.

This role of scents in feeling the emotions of others, he says, may help explain why people with more sensitive noses tend to have larger circles of friends and suffer less loneliness — both important predictors of health and longevity. For one study, researchers tested volunteers’ sense of smell with the “Sniffin’ Sticks” test. Using a set of penlike tubes containing various aromas and typically used for olfactory testing, they found that those who had the most sensitive noses also had larger social networks. Brain scans of the volunteers also suggested a link between olfactory sensitivity and social network size.

Smelling the body odor of a loved one can help reduce stress. When European researchers submitted a group of volunteers to weak electric shocks, those who could sniff T-shirts previously worn by their romantic partners stayed calmer — this was reflected by their skin’s electrical conductivity, an indicator of stress. We also sleep better when we can take a whiff of a friendly body odor: simply putting a partner’s used shirt under the pillow causes people to have more restful sleep, an effect comparable to popping a melatonin pill, de Groot says.

When we spend time with friends and relatives face-to-face, we may get on the same brain wave — literally. According to a 2023 study, as soon as we look each other in the eyes, the neural activity in our brains may become synchronized: on an electroencephalography reading of two synchronized brains the lines representing each person’s neural activity fluctuate up and down together. Such neural synchrony has been linked with more kindness toward others, better communication and cooperation. However, if we text or chat over video, neural synchrony between our brains almost disappears.

A 2024 review found that holding hands, hugs, and other friendly skin-to-skin contact can also help us sleep better, as well as reduce stress. A daily dose of hugs improves the functioning of the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis, the stress pathway. It also lowers the levels of proinflammatory cytokines, molecules involved in the development of diabetes and heart disease. Friendly touch can be a powerful painkiller, too. C-tactile fibers, a type of nerve fibers in human skin, respond to slow, stroking touches by sending signals to the brain that reduce the feelings of pain. Such effects have been found for both painful medical procedures and chronic diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease. The relief, research shows, is immediate.

Face-to-face interactions may also influence immune health. One study conducted during the coronavirus pandemic, and based on an analysis of blood samples from 142 adults, revealed that meeting friends in person improves the functioning of genes linked to the immune system. Such benefits, however, didn’t materialize for those who only interacted with their friends online.

And while texting our friends or sending them Snapchat photos is certainly one way to keep the relationship going, for a deep connection we need more than seeing a friend’s two-dimensional image on a screen. You also need other senses, like smell, de Groot says, even if you don’t realize it. “It makes all the difference,” de Groot says.