Shopping for work, inflation, continuous screens… while everyone is talking about well-being, isolation is increasing. According to a European Union survey, 20.8% of adults experience some form of social isolation, 13% feel alone most of the time and 35% at least sometimes. In this context saturated with contacts but poor in deep connections, a Harvard professor affirms that the key to happiness comes through so-called “useless” friends in the utilitarian sense.
This professor is Arthur C. Brooks, economist and teacher at the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School, where he directs the Leadership and Happiness Laboratory at the Center for Public Leadership. His work, summarized by the CICS organization in “The Equations of Happiness”, is based on four pillars: family, friends, work and faith. His thesis is simple: “real friends” are useless in a utilitarian sense.
Why Arthur Brooks talks about “useless friends”
In his “Leadership and Happiness” courses and his column
How to Build a Life for the magazine The AtlanticArthur C. Brooks insists that family and friends weigh much more than money or prestige. “Friends of truth are ‘useless’ in a utilitarian sense. Like your family, they love you for who you are, regardless of your position, power or status,” he explained in one of his classes at Harvard.
To summarize his thinking, Arthur C. Brooks distinguishes “deal friends” from “real friends”. The first are mainly used to expand a network, obtain information or seize opportunities. The latter are deep, non-transactional friendships that remain present even in the event of a change in status, career or personal situation. Their value is not utilitarian, but emotional and relational.
Deal friends vs real friends: spotting utilitarian friendship
A test often mentioned in the positive psychology literature, inspired by the work of Arthur C. Brooks, consists of asking yourself: if I quit my job tomorrow, which friend would really stay? Research in positive psychology indicates that the quality of social relationships is one of the main factors in happiness, with friendships playing a central role in subjective well-being. In this context, many daily interactions are more about functional relationships than deep friendships.
This idea already joins Aristotle and his “perfect friendships” in theNicomachean Ethicscentered on virtue and not interest. She also joined the Harvard Study of Adult Development, now directed by psychiatrist Robert Waldinger. This tracking of hundreds of people since 1939 shows that the quality of close relationships is one of the best predictors of health and longevity. Robert Waldinger believes that having at least two very strong relationships changes the trajectory of one’s life.
How to Cultivate More “Useless Friends” in a Very Useful Life
For Arthur C. Brooks, these connections are rarely built in the office. It invites us to move beyond the utilitarian framework: volunteer activities, sports clubs, faith groups or reading circles where we come without a hidden agenda. Sharing a coffee without talking about goals, daring to say when things aren’t going well, remaining available when the other person is going through an ordeal, these are small gestures that transform a simple contact into an emotional refuge.
In his overall vision of happiness, Arthur C. Brooks adds faith and work: practicing meditation or prayer, looking for meaning in what we do. But the basic message remains the same. In a society obsessed with utility, taking care of those friends who are “useless” for nothing becomes perhaps the most strategic act there is for one’s own joy.