Boise State nursing student Mia Flores, a junior from Caldwell, Idaho, and retired financial advisor Dennis Hall are an unlikely pair – friends across a 60-year age gap at a time when Americans report having fewer close friendships than ever. Their connection began through a Boise State research project that suggests a possible antidote to what scholars call a “friendship recession.”
The InterGen Project, led by Associate Professor April Masarik, pairs Boise State undergraduates with older adults enrolled in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Boise State. Launched in fall 2025, the program is designed to foster relationships across generations and study their impact. Early results suggest those connections can be both meaningful and durable.
Community in crisis
Researchers describe a growing “friendship recession,” driven by a mix of social and technological changes. For Flores, isolation intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It kind of became our comfort zone,” she said.
Hall pointed to technology as another factor.
“It’s so much easier to get on your device than it is to meet someone, sit down and talk with them.”
Masarik said the causes are layered and interdependent.
“This is a multifactorial issue,” she said. “You’ll hear people talking about how screens have ruined a generation or how the pandemic ruined a generation. It’s a perfect storm of many variables coming together.”
The effects are especially visible among older adults, said Osher Assistant Director Laura Mehlaff, who partnered with Masarik on the project.
“There’s a dire need for social connection and opportunities,” Mehlaff said. “It’s harder [for older adults] to find like-minded and similarly-aged people who are out and about.”
Research shows that positive intergenerational relationships are linked to improved mental and physical health, underscoring what Masarik describes as a basic human need.
“We need connection,” she said. “We crave it. We want people to hear us. We want people to see us. We want to be validated and understood.”
Building Connections
Still, forming new friendships, especially across generations, can be difficult. InterGen was designed to bridge that gap.
The program pairs older adults with students in Masarik’s PSYC 310: Adolescent and Adult Development course. Each pair is asked to spend about 10 hours together over the semester, often beginning with structured meetings that quickly become informal social time.
“When we started, we got coffee and talked for about two hours,” Flores said of her first meeting with Hall. “If we didn’t have other commitments, we would have stayed longer.”
What began as a class assignment soon turned into an ongoing friendship. Flores and Hall continued meeting for coffee, hiking and exploring parks around Boise.
“It was a good match,” Hall said.
Each said they gained something from the relationship: Hall wanted to better connect with his grandchildren, while Flores hoped to learn from someone older and strengthen ties with her own grandparents.
“As you get older, the subjects of conversation start to narrow to ‘How’s that pain in your left side?’” Hall said. “Being with people of various ages helps open things up and keep your mind active.”
Friendship on file
The fall 2025 InterGen cohort included 34 participants, many of whom reported forming lasting connections.
While students and older adults spent time together, Masarik tracked outcomes through regular questionnaires. Analysis is ongoing, but early findings are promising: every participant said they would recommend the program to a peer.
“[InterGen] validated my faith in the coming generation,” one older adult said. “I felt we were able to share and connect on a next level.”
A Boise State student who initially described their view of older generations as “meh” said the experience changed their perspective. “[It] definitely gave me a more positive attitude towards how much we can connect,” the student said.
The Community Engaged Public Scholarship Initiative supported the project as part of its effort to translate research into community impact.