The Business of Belonging: How Toy Story 5 reflects a wider conversation about friendship and belonging
The release of Toy Story 5 sparked a conversation in our office about friendship.
At its heart, the film explores a very current tension for parents and educators alike: how do we protect the meaningful face-to-face relationships that are built through play and imagination, while embracing the benefits that technology can bring? Rather than positioning technology as the villain, Pixar uses the contrast between toys and a tablet to explore a much broader conversation about what modern childhood should look like.
We found ourselves wondering to what degree some of the challenges we assume lie ahead for future generations are already shaping the lives of adults today. Are our communities already changing? Has technology irreversibly altered the way we connect with one another? Does work play a different role in our social lives than it once did? And what does all that mean for our ability to build and maintain meaningful relationships, not just with people but with brands too, in modern Britain?
Our latest research therefore explores how friendship is evolving today. As we analysed the findings, it became clear that understanding friendship also meant understanding belonging. Friendship is about the relationships we build with individuals. Belonging is about feeling part of a community. It provides the context in which friendships are formed and sustained, influencing how connected we feel, how we navigate change and how supported we are through different stages of life.
For organisations, understanding where people find that sense of belonging helps explain not just how people connect with one another, but how they engage with the brands, services and institutions that are part of their everyday lives.
We haven't stopped making friends, but belonging seems much harder to find
Despite frequent discussion about digital loneliness and social isolation, we have not stopped making friends. 37% have made a new friend within the last six months, while only 24% say it has been more than five years since they last made a new friend. Those under 45 are significantly more likely than older generations to have made a new friend during the last five years, suggesting that opportunities to build new relationships remain very much alive.
The challenge appears to come later. While people continue to make new friends, fewer than half (46%) say they have people they can really rely on when they need support. That rises to 57% among those aged 55+ but worryingly falls even further to just 37% among those aged 35-44.
The research suggests that sustaining friendships is becoming more difficult than making them. More than half (53%) acknowledge they have drifted apart from friends because their lives have changed, while 41% feel many of their friendships have been tied to particular stages of their life. 1 in 3 agree that social media helps them stay connected to people who used to be important in their life.
Perhaps that lack of consistency and longevity helps explain why over 1 in 4 admit they sometimes feel lonely even when surrounded by others. Just 28% say they have a strong sense of belonging in their life. Women are significantly less likely than men to report a strong sense of belonging (23% versus 33%) and more likely than men to report experiencing loneliness despite being surrounded by others (32% versus 23%).
Brands stand to benefit from authentically demonstrating the same qualities
The findings suggest that making friends is only the beginning. Building relationships that provide trust, support and a genuine sense of belonging appears to be the harder challenge.
That creates an interesting context for organisations. The friendships people value most are rarely defined by how often they see someone. They are defined by confidence that the other person knows them well enough to help, won't judge them, makes them feel safe and will still be there when life becomes difficult.
Brands are not expected to replace those relationships. But they do increasingly benefit from demonstrating the same qualities. Customers want to feel recognised rather than treated like a transaction. They want to feel safe asking for help, confident that they won't be judged when something goes wrong and reassured that an organisation understands their circumstances and is on their side. In a world where belonging can be harder to find, those moments become more than good customer experience. They are the evidence that an organisation understands people as individuals, not just customers.
This isn't the first time we've seen evidence that wider social context shapes commercial outcomes. Across The Harris Poll UK's Reputation Index and Customer Experience research, we've consistently found that organisations build stronger relationships when people feel recognised, understood and valued, not simply when transactions are completed efficiently. Belonging isn't a measure within those studies, but it increasingly feels like part of the context in which trust is earned and reputation is built.
Belonging increasingly needs new places to grow
The findings also begin to explain why belonging has become more difficult to sustain. 33% think people today have fewer opportunities for spontaneous friendships, and 30% do not participate in any regular activities or groups, whether in person or online. Belonging depends not only on relationships themselves, but on the places and routines that allow those relationships to develop over time.
Do you know your neighbours
Neighbourhoods have traditionally been one of those places, yet only 22% of people now feel connected to those living nearby and just 35% have built friendships with neighbours. 41% believe they know fewer neighbours than their parents did at the same age, while 27% think modern neighbourhoods make it harder to build lasting friendships. It's perhaps no surprise then that 23% would like stronger connections within their local community, rising to one in three among 18–34-year-olds and 27% of people living in cities.
Colleagues as friends
Work is becoming one of the places where belonging begins. 25% say they met their most recent close friend through work, making it the single most common place new friendships are formed. Among those in employment, 35% say the workplace provides an important sense of friendship and belonging, 34% say some of their closest friends originally came through work, and 29% believe they would miss their colleagues more than the work itself if they changed jobs.
For employers, this presents both an opportunity and a responsibility. Organisations cannot manufacture friendship, but they can create the conditions in which meaningful relationships have the chance to develop into a genuine sense of belonging. That means thinking beyond culture initiatives or team-building days and recognising the value of regular, shared experiences that help people get to know one another over time. Reassuringly, only one in five employees feel remote working has reduced opportunities to build meaningful relationships, suggesting that where people work matters less than whether organisations intentionally create opportunities for people to connect.
Friends through shared interests
15% say they met their most recent close friend through a shared hobby, sport or interest, while 30% have built meaningful friendships through shared activities at some point in their lives. Men are significantly more likely than women to have formed friendships in this way (37% versus 24%). Women are also slightly more likely not to take part in any regular activities or groups (33% compared with 27% of men).
The findings reinforce the importance of routine exposure to other people. Just as the workplace provides regular opportunities to build relationships over time, clubs and shared activities create the consistency that allows friendships to deepen into trust, support and belonging. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that 42% believe shared interests build stronger friendships than shared backgrounds, while 36% agree that adults need opportunities for play and shared experiences just as much as children do.
For organisations, communities and employers alike, there’s a reminder here that belonging is rarely created through a single initiative or a grand gesture. It is cultivated through regular exposure, where familiarity builds into connection and connection has the chance to become something deeper.
Friendships found online
Technology completes the picture. 22% of people say they have friendships that exist almost entirely online and 32% believe technology makes it easier to maintain friendships. However, only 18% feel online communities create a genuine sense of belonging, suggesting that while technology can help people stay connected, it cannot easily recreate the depth of belonging that grows through shared experiences over time.
Building a new community feels much harder than making new friends
We asked people to imagine moving to a new town tomorrow and building a meaningful friendship group within a couple of years. Only one in five said they would feel very confident they could do it, while 62% said they would feel either fairly or very confident overall. The gap between men and women is striking: 71% of men said they would feel confident, compared with 55% of women. Viewed alongside the wider findings on belonging and loneliness, it raises important questions about who feels equipped to rebuild social connections when life changes.
The findings suggest that making a friend and building a community are not the same challenge. People continue to form new relationships throughout their lives, but creating the conditions where those relationships develop into trust, support and a genuine sense of belonging appears to be considerably harder.
The challenges around belonging should underpin how brands think about people
Brands need to realise that belonging is rarely created through a single initiative or a grand gesture. It is cultivated through regular opportunities to come together around shared interests, shared experiences or a shared purpose. Whether through the communities a brand supports, the workplace it creates or the experiences it designs, organisations have more influence than they might realise over the environments where belonging has the chance to grow.
It's perhaps fitting that this research began with Toy Story 5. By the time we'd worked through the findings, our attention had shifted from friendship to the conditions that allow belonging to grow.
Woody, Buzz and Jessie spend much of the film trying to protect playtime from Lilypad, Bonnie's new tablet. Yet the more interesting question isn't whether technology wins or loses, but why Bonnie is looking for connection in the first place. The film reflects what our research uncovered: friendships and belonging don't happen by accident. They need the time, spaces and shared experiences that allow them to grow.
That's why this research matters to us at The Harris Poll UK. We exist to help organisations understand consumer needs in a demanding world, and those needs are shaped by much more than the economy or technology alone. They're shaped by the changing ways people build relationships, find support and experience belonging.
Belonging isn't something organisations can create on behalf of people. But they can influence the environments in which it grows. The opportunity isn't to manufacture community; it's to create more moments where people come together regularly enough for trust, familiarity and belonging to take root.
If you'd like to explore what these changing social dynamics mean for your customers, your employees or your sector, we'd love to continue the conversation.
