Americans, we are told, have never been lonelier. We have fewer friends. We spend more time at home and less time out of the house, socializing face-to-face with other people. And when we interact with other people, it’s often mediated through a device, blunting the stress of the situation.
If only there were some magic elixir that could make social interaction less overwhelming and more fun. Not something new and unproven, but rather something that has been around for literally millennia, weaving itself into religious and cultural traditions.
I am, of course, talking about alcohol, which Americans are drinking less and less of at the same time that socializing and friendships are falling.
According to Gallup, just 54% of adults said they consume alcohol, a record low stretching all the way back to 1939, when Gallup first started asking the question. For the last 30 years, about 60% of Americans reported drinking alcohol, down from a high of 71% in 1978.
Now, of course, drinking excessive amounts of alcohol is bad. If you’re having more than four or five drinks when you go out, that’s a problem. But there is actually a large body of research that shows that moderate drinking is good for people, especially their social lives.
One 2016 survey of over 2,000 adults found that “social drinkers have more friends on whom they can depend for emotional and other support, and feel more engaged with, and trusting of, their local community.” Alcohol, the study explains, “is known to trigger the endorphin system, and the social consumption of alcohol may thus have the same effect as the many other social activities such as laughter, singing, and dancing that we use as a means of servicing and reinforcing social bonds.”
A 2012 study of over 700 people, broken up into smaller groups of just three people, all strangers, found that the individuals in the groups who drank alcohol smiled more, their smiles were more sincere than those of non-drinkers, and the smiles were more coordinated with those of other group members. The alcohol drinkers also reported greater social bonding than non-drinkers did, and were more likely to have all three group members stay involved in the discussion.
HAVE HIGH SCHOOL BOYS REALLY GOTTEN THAT BAD?
Like divorce, alcohol consumption is contagious, both ways. A peer group with stable marriages will avoid divorces, while a peer group with many divorces will breed more divorces. Peer groups that abstain from alcohol will have more abstainers, while peer groups with drinkers will have more drinkers.
For now, the abstainers seem to be on a roll, convincing more and more people to give up alcohol altogether. But is abstinence making us happier? It doesn’t appear so. Maybe it’s time more Americans relaxed a little and had a drink.