This Is The Age You'll Have The Most Friends, According To Experts

You have more friends now than you'll ever have again, according to science.

Researchers recently analyzed call data from 3.2 million customers of a European phone company and found the number of people a person communicates with is, on average, highest at age 25 — meaning, at that age, your social circle tends to be biggest.

As you age, this number decreases rapidly until about age 40, where it begins to plateau a bit.

The researchers note,

One important conclusion we can draw is that the average number of contacts is quite modest: in most cases, people focus their (phone-based) social effort each month on around 15 people.

The study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, only dealt with phone calls, not all phone contact. Trends for texting may be much different; that's a subject for a different study.

Interestingly, the researchers determined that, contrary to popular belief, the rise of social media and technology does not have a negative effect on our face-to-face conversation (this is, of course, assumed based on the data).

Further, women aren't always the chatterbugs we're made out to be: In fact, men maintain more phone contact with others until the age of 40, after which the pattern flips.

While the study shows people tend to be most social at age 25, remember, this study looked at European call trends. So if you're 25 and still don't have any friends, well — hold on to hope that trends in the US are different.

Check out the study here.

Citations: The age when people are the most popular, according to science (Washington Post)