How important is friendship to you? According to a Pew Research Center study in 2023, 61 percent of U.S. adults said having close friends is extremely or very important for people to live a fulfilling life, which is much higher than the share who said the same about being married (23 percent), having children (26 percent) or having a lot of money (24 percent). Meanwhile, almost one in three Americans feel lonely every week.

Graduate students and postdoctoral scholars can benefit in many ways from prioritizing friendships, Yi Hao and Mallory Neil write.

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