Think back to a good time you recently had with a loved one: an hours-long conversation with a friend or a perfect night of watching TV on the couch with family. I’d venture to guess you still feel a little surge of warmth when you recall it. It’s an intuitive truth that everybody needs these experiences to live a happy life, and recent happiness research suggests that young people can only really flourish when they have “real-life human contact and love,” Arthur C. Brooks writes. Social connection and community is important for human well-being—not least because it aids in the process of finding meaning and feeling that one’s life has purpose, Brooks notes.

But young people are facing a series of roadblocks to finding that meaning: Institutions such as organized religion are in decline, and alternative communities are hard to find, especially when young adults are glued to technology. These trends are by now well-known—and yet the path to a better life might come down to incorporating a few basic principles, Brooks argues. The first one? “Put close relationships with family and friends before virtually everything else.”

• Why Americans suddenly stopped hanging out: Too much aloneness is creating a crisis of social fitness, Derek Thompson wrote last year.
• The easiest way to keep your friends: It’s a little boring, a little type A, and a lot better than letting relationships fizzle, Serena Dai writes.