Why Haven exists
Connection is fraying, and not only where you'd expect.
We didn't start Haven on a hunch. We started it because the evidence keeps pointing the same way: reliable human connection is thinning across the whole of modern life, not in one corner of it. Here is what that evidence says, by the people it touches, and what we mean to do about it.
“One might imagine that older Americans are more isolated than young people. Turns out, older generations feel least lonely.”
Pew Research Center, 2025 · on who loneliness actually hits hardest
The need · by who it touches
Loneliness isn't a stage of life. It's a condition of modern life.
It shows up differently for a new parent than for a widow, for a young man than for a rural senior. Choose a thread below. Every figure is public and sourced, and the pattern beneath them is the same.
The loneliest, and the least expected
The generation most connected online is the loneliest offline.
Across survey after survey, the youngest adults report the highest loneliness of any age group, despite, or because of, lives lived largely through screens. Digital contact is not turning out to be a substitute for a real voice.
67%
of Gen Z adults classify as lonely, versus 44% of Boomers.
Cigna / Evernorth, 2025
61%
of people aged 18-25 report profound loneliness.
Harvard Making Caring Common
35%
of youth say loneliness disrupts their daily life.
Hopelab & Data for Progress, 2025
Why this matters for Haven
A real voice on the line is the one thing the research keeps saying digital connection can't replace. Young adults aren't short on contact; they're short on the kind that lands.
The friendship recession
Men's social circles have collapsed in a single generation.
Since 1990 the share of men with no close friends has risen fivefold. Male friendship falls away after school, marriage, and especially divorce, and men lean on the friends they keep far less than women do.
3% → 15%
share of men with no close friends at all, a fivefold rise since 1990.
Survey Center on American Life
1 in 5
single men, unmarried and unpartnered, have no close friends today.
PBS NewsHour, 2024
42% > 37%
men over 45 are now lonelier than women, a reversal from 2018.
AARP, 2025
Why this matters for Haven
Men reach out least and lose friends fastest, so a standing, no-pressure call, one they don't have to initiate or perform for, meets exactly the gap the data describes.
Surrounded by need, and still alone
New parents and caregivers are lonely in a crowded room.
The people giving the most care often receive the least connection. Loneliness among younger caregivers and parents of small children rivals or exceeds that of the seniors they may be caring for, and it hides behind busy, needed days.
~2 in 3
parents of young children and unpaid caregivers classify as lonely.
Cigna / Evernorth, 2025
72%
of caregivers aged 18-32 report loneliness, versus 59% of those 45-64.
Cigna, 2025
Confusing
life stays busy and people stay needed, yet emotional support feels absent.
Loneliness in America 2025
Why this matters for Haven
A caregiver can't leave the house for a social hour, but can take a call without leaving the kitchen. Haven fits into a housebound, over-committed life in a way in-person programs can't.
When life changes shape
Loneliness follows loss, not birthdays.
The sharpest predictor of isolation isn't age, it's a change in circumstance: losing a spouse, a divorce, a move, retirement, an empty house. The widowed and divorced are the loneliest groups by marital status, at any age.
31% / 32%
of widowed and of divorced or separated people report loneliness.
National data via CCSMH
2×
more likely to be lonely than married peers, who sit near 13%.
National data
45%
of lonely older adults say they have fewer friends than five years ago.
AARP, 2025
Why this matters for Haven
Life transitions sever a relationship, they don't just thin a schedule. Haven restores a dependable human presence at exactly the moment one has been lost.
Later life · the best-documented chapter
For older adults, isolation is measured in years of life.
This is where the evidence is deepest and the stakes most physical. Sustained isolation carries a mortality risk equated with heavy smoking and materially raises the risk of dementia, heart disease, and stroke.
43%
of adults 50+ are at risk of social isolation; up to 59% have known loneliness.
National Institute on Ageing, 2024
15
cigarettes a day: the mortality risk equated with lasting loneliness.
Nat'l Seniors Council · WHO
+50%
higher dementia risk for isolated older adults, with heart and stroke risk raised too.
U.S. CDC
Why this matters for Haven
The need here is as real and serious as ever, and often it's an adult child arranging dependable contact for a parent. One chapter of Haven's story, not the whole of it.
Distance & the vanishing meeting place
Sometimes the barrier is simply space, and a lost place to gather.
Isolation is partly built by geography and by the quiet disappearance of the everyday places people used to meet. Rural distance, no transit, and shuttered third places cut people off regardless of who they are.
6.5 → 4
weekly hours with friends fell to four by 2019, from a steady 6.5 for decades.
American Time Use / analysis
+1h39m
more time spent at home per day than two decades ago; over 2h more for the young.
Time-use study, 2003-2022
Months
a rural senior without a car or cleared sidewalks can be cut off through winter.
National Seniors Council toolkit
Why this matters for Haven
A voice call is weatherproof and distance-proof. When the meeting place is gone or unreachable, the line is still open.
The thread that ties them
Beneath every thread is one shared loss: the places we used to meet.
The clubs, congregations, leagues, and corner gathering-spots that once made friendship happen by accident have thinned out, and with them the everyday, low-pressure contact that held people together. What's left is a society spending more time at home, alone, across every age. Haven doesn't replace a third place. It restores the one thing those places reliably gave: a familiar voice, on purpose.
4×
rise in Americans with no close friends since 1990.
Survey Center on American Life
33% vs 60%
community-event attendance for those with no close friends versus those with six or more.
Survey Center on American Life
54%
of all U.S. adults feel isolated often or sometimes.
APA Stress in America, 2025
Our answer
Different threads, one plain remedy: a real person, on the line.
Not an app to master. Not a machine standing in for a human. Whoever the loneliness belongs to, the research points to the same thing: dependable, genuine human contact. Haven is built around it.
Someone real, and known
Every Companion is a genuine, caring human, welcomed and vetted by us. The person on the line is a real person, the plain opposite of what a scam manufactures.
A call you can count on
A call you can count on, not connection left to chance, for anyone whose circle has thinned, whatever the reason.
Anonymous, and unhurried
No one has to perform. Anonymity is the foundation, not a setting, so a call can be honest, easy, and free of pressure.
Human, on purpose
Haven is not a chatbot or an AI companion. As the rules rightly tighten around AI in emotional support, our answer is the durable one: a person, not a program, on the other end. The only technology in the room works quietly in the background, keeping everyone safe.
Why we're showing you this
We think there's a real service here. We wanted to show you it's a real good, too.
This isn't marketing dressed as research. Every figure above is public, sourced, and sobering, and together they're the reason Haven exists. Loneliness isn't one group's problem. Neither is the answer.
Sources & method
Every figure here is public, and kept in its source's own words.
We hold each figure to the population and year its source reports, rather than generalizing. Survey methods and age brackets differ between studies, so the numbers illustrate a consistent direction, not a single controlled measure.
- Pew Research Center (2025)
- Cigna / Evernorth Research Institute, “Loneliness in America” (2025)
- Survey Center on American Life / AEI friendship studies
- Harvard Making Caring Common project
- Gallup (2025)
- AARP Research (2025)
- APA, Stress in America (2025)
- National Institute on Ageing (2024)
- U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- World Health Organization
- National Seniors Council of Canada
Haven is a companionship service. It is not therapy, medical care, or a crisis line. If you or someone you love is in distress, please reach a licensed professional or a local crisis line.