More Adults Are Turning to Hobbies Instead of Apps to Make New Friends and the Trend Is Growing
Adults are rethinking how they meet people, and the answer increasingly looks less like an app and more like a pottery wheel, a running loop or a paperback. Shared-interest activities from book clubs to Sunday long runs are becoming the default way grown-ups build social lives, and a growing crop of platforms is helping people find their crowd through a hobby rather than a swipe.
The shift is showing up in surveys, in club membership numbers and in how researchers talk about friendship itself. It also lines up with what mental health experts have been saying for years doing things you enjoy with other people is good for you.
Why a hobby is becoming the new way to meet friends
The friendship landscape has changed. Adults who once relied on workplaces, school connections or dating-style apps to expand their social circles are turning to spaces organized around a specific activity instead. The appeal is straightforward you already have something in common, conversation has a built-in topic, and showing up regularly creates the repeated contact that friendships need to grow. Whether it’s a weekly run club, a knitting circle or a Sunday afternoon at the pottery studio, the structure does a lot of the social heavy lifting.
What the research says about hobbies, friendships and well-being
There’s a measurable mental health upside to picking up an activity, and it’s part of why the hobby-first approach has resonated. A 2023 poll by the American Psychiatric Association found that 71% of participants reporting “very good” or “excellent” mental health said they engage in creative activities more frequently than those reporting “good,” “fair” or “poor” mental health. Research also suggests that if the hobby involves art, spending two or more hours per week on it provides the strongest well-being benefits. Layer in the social side making friends through the activity and the payoff compounds.
Book clubs as a friendship hub
Book clubs are one of the clearest examples of how a hobby can anchor a real social life. A 2025 survey of 2,000 Americans conducted by Talker Research and commissioned by ThriftBooks pointed to reading groups as a space where members are forming meaningful connections including new friendships.
Barbara Hagen, vice president of marketing at ThriftBooks, said “Not only are reading groups having a significant impact on readers’ romantic lives and friendships, they’re also hugely beneficial for book club members’ mental health.”
She added, “In the survey, we found that readers are meeting in-person, online, in hybrid in-person and online settings and even on social forums. They’re also reading a diverse span of literature from recently-released titles to the classics and making friends and romantic connections along the way.”
Run clubs and the science of doing things together
Run clubs have exploded as a friendship space. Data from platforms like Strava shows club participation has surged over the last two years, with some communities seeing major growth. The reason it works isn’t just the endorphins it’s the act of moving toward a shared goal alongside other people.
Arran Davis, an expert on social connection and health at the University of Oxford, told the BBC that collaborative activities like team sports can not only make exercise feel easier, but can help us build social relationships.
“There’s a couple of ways that could happen the first is just doing stuff together. So what psychologists call ‘sharing intention,’” he said. The term refers to connecting over a common goal or action. As Davis put it, it’s the sense of “‘I think about what you’re thinking about, you think about what I’m thinking about.’”
Shared intention “makes us feel a bit closer to one another and that can lead us to view one another as good cooperative partners or people that we feel more similar to,” he said. “And these are the things that build friendships … through coordinating or collaborating, we’re able to signal to each other that we’re friends.”
Activities worth trying if you want to make friends through a hobby
The activity itself matters less than the consistency. Anything that puts you in the same room or on the same trail as the same people on a regular basis can become the foundation for friendships. Some popular options include
- Pottery classes
- Knitting and crocheting
- Baking and cooking groups
- Gardening and volunteer gardening
- Book clubs
- Running clubs
- Pilates and surf lessons
- Watercolor classes
- Dance classes like hip hop
Apps and platforms built around a hobby
A new wave of platforms is designed to match people through what they actually do, not who they swipe on. They’re worth knowing if you’re trying to build a circle of friends around shared interests
- Strava running, cycling and hiking communities
- RacketPal / Reclub casual sports like pickleball, volleyball and hiking
- Activitybees find partners, groups or coaches for specific activities
- Hobbytwin connect with people to learn or teach skills
- Silent Book Club read together with optional chats
- StoryGraph / Fable social reading communities
- Tuft Club collaborative craft workshops
- Ravelry community site for knitters and crocheters
- Meetup local hobby and interest groups
- Eventbrite workshops and social events
- Palls matches you with people and activities based on your interests
The throughline across all of them is the same idea driving the broader trend the easiest way to make friends as an adult is to show up somewhere, on purpose, doing something you actually like.
This article was created by content specialists using various tools, including AI.
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