Board Games and Loneliness: A Cheap Cure in a Box

If you have ever written off board games as something for kids or for people with too much free time, this article is for you. The link between board games and loneliness is not a cute idea. It is a practical answer to one of the most serious public-health problems in the country. A weekly game night costs less than a gym membership, needs no special skill, and gives you the one thing the research keeps pointing to: regular, in-person time with the same people.

Here is the case, made plainly.

How bad is the loneliness problem, really?

In 2023 the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, issued a formal advisory on loneliness and isolation. Advisories are reserved for urgent threats. Past ones covered smoking and the opioid crisis.

The advisory said that about one in two American adults report experiencing loneliness. It compared the mortality risk of lacking social connection to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. That comparison traces back to a large meta-analysis led by Julianne Holt-Lunstad at Brigham Young University, which pooled 148 studies and found that people with stronger social ties had about 50 percent better odds of survival over the follow-up period, an effect comparable to quitting smoking and larger than the effects of obesity or physical inactivity.

The trend lines are what worry people most. By the advisory’s count, time spent with friends in person fell from about an hour a day in 2003 to roughly 20 minutes a day in 2020, and among 15-to-24-year-olds it dropped by nearly 70 percent. The share of Americans who say they have no close friends rose from 3 percent in 1990 to 12 percent in 2021, according to the Survey Center on American Life.

None of this is caused by a shortage of people. Cities are full. Phones are full. What is missing is a reason to sit in the same room with the same people, again and again.

Why do board games work against loneliness?

Loneliness is not the same as being alone. It is the gap between the connection you have and the connection you want. Closing that gap takes three things: repetition, low stakes, and a shared focus. A game table supplies all three.

Repetition. The Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has followed people since 1938, keeps reaching the same conclusion: how satisfied people were with their relationships at 50 predicted their physical health at 80 better than their cholesterol levels did, and close relationships mattered more than money or fame. Quality relationships are built through frequency. A game night that happens every Thursday turns acquaintances into friends by sheer accumulation.

Low stakes. Walking into a party and making small talk is hard. Sitting down to a game of Ticket to Ride is easy. The game gives you a job. You are collecting train cards, not auditioning for friendship. The pressure to be interesting goes away, and that is when people relax enough to be themselves.

Shared focus. Conversation researchers have noted that people often connect better side by side than face to face. A board spreads out between you and gives everyone somewhere to look. Silences are not awkward because the game fills them. Then someone makes a terrible trade in Catan, the table erupts, and you have a story you will tell for years.

There is also a quieter mechanism. Games create what sociologists call a “third place,” somewhere that is neither home nor work. Ray Oldenburg, who coined the term, argued that these places are where community actually forms. A regular table at a friend’s kitchen or a game lounge is a third place you can build yourself.

Is there evidence that games specifically help?

The honest answer is that the strongest evidence is for social connection in general, not for cardboard in particular. But the specific research that exists points in the same direction.

• A long-running study of older adults in Scotland, the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936, found that people who played more non-digital games such as cards and board games in their 70s showed less decline in memory and thinking speed over that decade. The researchers called the effect small but detectable.
• A systematic review of programs for socially isolated older adults found that group-based activities were more likely to help than one-to-one visits, with most group programs reporting at least one benefit for social or mental health.
• Hormone studies point the same way. In one University of Wisconsin experiment, stressed children comforted by a parent in person or by phone showed higher oxytocin and lower cortisol, while children comforted by text message looked no different from those who got no contact at all. Presence and voice do something a screen does not.

What makes games unusual compared to other group activities is the ratio of structure to talk. A book club needs everyone to have done homework. A sports league needs fitness and a field. A dinner party needs a host who cooks. A game of Codenames needs a table and 20 minutes. The barrier is low enough that the habit sticks.

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What kind of games work best for connection?

Not all games are equal here. A game that rewards the most studious player can make a newcomer feel stupid. The goal is games where the social layer is the point. A few that reliably work:

Avoid games that eliminate players early or run past two hours until the group knows each other. Nobody bonds while sitting out.

If your crowd is new to games, we wrote a separate guide on getting a recurring group off the ground. The short version is that consistency matters more than the game choice.

How do you start if you are the lonely one?

This is the hard part. The person who most needs a game night is often the one who feels least able to host it. A few things that help:

1. Invite two people, not ten. A three-person game of The Crew is a full game. Small groups are easier to schedule and feel less like an event.
2. Pick a fixed day. “Sometime soon” never happens. “Every other Tuesday” does.
3. Say the game, not the hangout. “Want to come play Wingspan on Tuesday?” is easier to accept than “Want to hang out?” The game gives both of you cover.
4. Lower the bar. Store-bought snacks. A kitchen table. Nobody cares.
5. Go public if you need to. Most cities have open game nights at libraries, cafés, and game stores. Showing up to one is the fastest route to meeting people who already want to play. If you have just moved, we have specific advice for that.

The first night will be a little awkward. The third will not be. By the tenth, you will have a group text, inside jokes, and someone who notices when you miss a week. That is what the Surgeon General’s advisory is asking for. It just does not say so in those words.

Why does this matter beyond feeling better?

The Surgeon General’s advisory links poor social connection to a 29 percent higher risk of heart disease, a 32 percent higher risk of stroke, and roughly a 50 percent higher risk of dementia in older adults, and finds that people who often feel lonely have more than double the odds of developing depression. If a weekly habit can move those odds even slightly, it belongs in the same conversation as diet and exercise. The LEV Institute, which studies the ethics of extending healthy life, treats regular social play as a health behavior, not a hobby.

This is also why we talk about “togethering” rather than “gaming.” The game is the medium. What it produces is time together, repeated until it becomes a bond. Few other activities do that as cheaply or as reliably.

For the data behind the problem itself, read our explainer on the loneliness epidemic.

FAQ

Do board games actually reduce loneliness?

Regular in-person social activity is strongly linked to lower loneliness and better long-term health, and board games are one of the lowest-barrier ways to create that activity on a schedule. The game itself matters less than the repetition.

How often should you play games with friends to feel a difference?

Once a week is the sweet spot most groups land on, and even every other week builds real friendships over a few months. Frequency beats session length.

What are the best board games for adults who feel isolated?

Start with short, social, cooperative or team games like Codenames, Just One, Wavelength, or The Crew. They need little teaching and nobody sits out.

Can online board games help with loneliness too?

They help some, especially for staying in touch at a distance, but the research on connection favors being physically present. Use online play to supplement a real table, not replace it.

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The Ludarium is building a home for exactly this kind of table, starting with a game lounge in Indianapolis. If you want a steady stream of ideas for your own game night, and new articles on play and health before anyone else, subscribe to the newsletter at theludarium.com.

The game is the reason. The people are the point.

Sources

• Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation (U.S. Surgeon General, 2023)
• Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review (PLOS Medicine, 2010)
• The State of American Friendship (Survey Center on American Life, 2021)
• Good genes are nice, but joy is better (Harvard Gazette, 2017)
• Games can protect thinking skills in older age (University of Edinburgh, 2019)
• Interventions targeting social isolation in older people: a systematic review (BMC Public Health, 2011)
• Text Messages No Substitute for Mother’s Voice (Pacific Standard)