What the research actually says about friendship, loneliness and how humans stay close.
About one in five adults now reports having no close friends, up from roughly one in forty in the early 1990s. The trend is real, measured, and structural. Here is the evidence behind the loneliness epidemic.
Can a chatbot be your friend? In 2025 the research split clean down the middle: short-term comfort, long-term risk. Here is what the Harvard and MIT studies actually found.
The 'third place', sociologist Ray Oldenburg's term for the cafe, pub or park where you freely belong, is having a moment as a loneliness antidote. Here is what it means, and why Melbourne is rich in them.
A landmark study of three million people's phone records found our social circle peaks at age 25, then steadily declines. Here is the curve, and why it is structural, not a personal failing.
Psychologist Jeffrey Hall put a number on friendship: roughly 200 hours together to become close. Here is what that means, and why your calendar, not your personality, is the real problem.
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The Dispatch is written under pen names by Hey Sini's editors. The reporting is real; the bylines are a house tradition.