Nearly 2 In 5 Americans Went ‘No Contact’ With A Loved One This Year

Avoidance Is the New American Default, and It’s Making Everyone Lonelier

A growing number of Americans are deciding they’re done. Done with the friend who never apologizes. Done with the family member whose phone calls leave them drained. Done with the group chat that feels more like an obligation than a connection. According to a new survey released for Mental Health Awareness Month, 38 percent of Americans have gone “no contact” with a friend or family member in the past year, cutting off communication entirely rather than working through whatever went wrong.

Going no contact, once reserved for extreme circumstances like abuse or betrayal, has quietly become a routine tool for handling ordinary relationship friction. Blocking someone on social media, removing them from a group chat, or simply ghosting them has moved from taboo to tactic. And the generational split is dramatic: 60 percent of Gen Z respondents reported cutting off a loved one in the past year, compared to just 20 percent of baby boomers.

Commissioned by the therapy platform Talkspace and conducted by Talker Research, the survey of 2,000 American adults paints a portrait of a country increasingly inclined to walk away rather than work it out. Mental health experts warn that the pattern may be deepening a loneliness crisis that was already reshaping American life.

Why Americans Are Choosing to Go No Contact

When researchers asked participants to explain their decision, the most common answer was a lack of respect. Thirty-six percent said the person they cut off was not respectful toward them. Another 29 percent cited harm to their mental health, and 27 percent said the other person was simply too negative to keep around.

Those motivations line up with a broader cultural conversation about boundaries and toxic relationships. But the survey also captured something more troubling. Seventy-three percent of respondents said that when a relationship hits a rough patch, their instinct is to pull away rather than talk it through. Avoidance has become the default setting.

Dr. Nikole Benders-Hadi, chief medical officer at Talkspace, connected that avoidance to a broader sense of disconnection. “These results suggest that avoiding relationship challenges is becoming more common, but that approach can come with its own risks, making it harder to sustain meaningful connections over time and leading to more loneliness,” she said.

Once contact is cut, it tends to stay cut. A majority of those who had severed ties in the past year, 59 percent, reported they were still not speaking with the person they had distanced themselves from.

Smaller Cutoffs, Same Direction

Going fully no contact is only the most dramatic expression of a wider trend. More than a third of Americans, 36 percent, said they had blocked a friend or family member on social media in the past year, and 30 percent had removed a loved one from a group chat. Each of those actions is smaller than a formal breakup, but each sends the same message of quiet exclusion.

That instinct to shrink one’s social world extends well beyond close relationships. Forty percent of respondents said they would rather cross the street than stop and chat with an acquaintance for five minutes. Thirty-seven percent admitted they would pretend to take a phone call to dodge two minutes of small talk with a stranger. Gen Z led the pack in both categories.

Technology has made avoidance remarkably easy. Sixty-eight percent of respondents use online ordering to cut down on interactions, 64 percent reach for self-checkout kiosks, 42 percent lean on chatbots and automated help systems, and 24 percent have used autonomous taxis or rideshares. Every convenience doubles as a buffer against human contact.

The Loneliness Bill Comes Due

All of this adds up. Forty-seven percent of Americans in the survey said they experience loneliness during a typical day. Thirty-four percent said they feel less socially connected than they did five years ago. And 68 percent said they struggle to build in-person community at all, citing social anxiety, a preference for solitude, and a sense of not fitting in with the people around them.

There is, though, a flicker of hope in the numbers. While 41 percent of respondents admitted they are uninvolved in their local community, 31 percent said they actually want to get more involved. The top items on their wish list are refreshingly old-fashioned: attending local festivals and markets, getting to know neighbors, volunteering for community service projects, and shopping at small businesses.

When respondents described what a healthy relationship looks like, the answers also leaned toward the basics. Forty-seven percent said feeling safe enough to voice their thoughts and opinions was essential. Forty-one percent pointed to mutual celebration of each other’s wins, feeling seen and understood, consistency and reliability, and respect for boundaries.

Benders-Hadi suggested that the way back from mass disconnection starts with the very conversations people are avoiding. “Prioritizing communication, setting healthy boundaries and staying engaged even when it’s uncomfortable can help people preserve the relationships that support their mental wellness,” she said.

Cutting someone off offers an immediate sense of relief and control. Working through conflict offers only the promise of maybe, eventually, feeling better. A generation has weighed those options and increasingly chosen the quick exit. Whether Americans can rebuild the muscle for staying in the room when things get hard, before the walls between them become permanent, is the real question this survey leaves behind.

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