A full calendar can look like a connected life.
Classes. Work. Gym. Meetings. Student organizations. Study groups. Volunteering. Practices. Events. Messages. Projects.
But being constantly occupied is not necessarily the same as feeling supported, useful, known, or connected.
New research published on August 17, 2026, offers a useful way to think about that distinction. Researchers Sydney Clark, Steven Byungkwan Ko, Blake L. Jones, AliceAnn Crandall, and Carl Lee Hanson examined community engagement, flourishing, depression, and anxiety among college students.
Their study, published in PLOS Mental Health, included 379 undergraduate students and examined engagement across family, peer, school, work, and church communities. Engagement across several of those areas was associated with greater flourishing, and higher flourishing was associated with lower levels of depression and anxiety. Peer engagement showed the strongest association with flourishing among the community domains examined.
That does not mean joining more organizations will prevent depression or anxiety. The study was observational and cannot establish that community engagement caused better mental health.
Its practical implication is more modest—and perhaps more useful:
What fills your schedule may matter less than whether some of those activities actually make you feel connected to other people.
For students, athletes, professionals, parents, and anyone living under pressure, resilience may not require adding another wellness activity. Sometimes it means asking whether the commitments already consuming your time provide belonging, purpose, support, or simply more work.
Being Busy And Being Connected Are Different Experiences
Consider two college students with equally crowded schedules.
One attends classes, works 20 hours a week, exercises alone, studies late at night, and participates in several organizations mainly because they look useful on a résumé.
The other has fewer commitments but regularly studies with two classmates, calls family, attends one organization where people know them well, and volunteers somewhere they feel useful.
Both may technically be busy.
Their social experiences can be very different.
The distinction matters because community engagement is more than occupying the same physical space as other people.
In the August 2026 study, researchers examined engagement across multiple areas of students’ lives rather than treating community as one generic category. Engagement with family, peers, school, and church was positively associated with flourishing. Peer engagement had the strongest association, with a standardized coefficient of β = 0.26.
The researchers also found significant indirect associations between community engagement and lower depression and anxiety symptoms through flourishing.
These findings should be interpreted carefully.
The study does not prove that joining a community causes someone’s anxiety or depression to improve. Other characteristics may influence both engagement and mental health, and the sample came from students recruited through an introductory psychology course.
Still, it gives us a useful question to ask:
Does this commitment create connection, or does it simply create activity?
Flourishing Is Broader Than Feeling Happy
The study’s focus on flourishing is important.
Flourishing is not the same as being cheerful all the time.
In psychological research, the concept generally describes broader positive functioning, including areas such as meaning, relationships, purpose, competence, and engagement with life.
Someone can therefore experience stress and still have parts of life that are functioning well.
A student might be worried about an exam but feel strongly connected with friends.
An athlete might be frustrated after a loss while still experiencing purpose within the team.
A parent can be tired while feeling supported by a neighborhood community.
A professional can have a difficult week while still believing their work matters.
This is different from expecting people to maintain a permanently positive emotional state.
The researchers found that higher flourishing was associated with lower reported depression and anxiety symptoms in their sample.
That association does not turn flourishing into a treatment for mental-health conditions.
It does suggest that when we talk about mental well-being, asking only “How stressed are you?” can miss important information.
Another question is:
What in your life currently gives you connection, meaning, or a sense that you belong?
More Activities Are Not Automatically Better
This is where conventional productivity culture can create confusion.
Students are frequently encouraged to do more.
Join clubs.
Build leadership experience.
Volunteer.
Network.
Exercise.
Work.
Develop skills.
Maintain friendships.
Get internships.
Attend campus events.
Each activity can have value individually.
Combined without limits, they can become another source of pressure.
New U.S. research on student organizations makes this especially relevant. A 2026 study by Brandy Reeves-Doyle, Olutosin Sanyaolu, and Karly Scott-Hillis Geller analyzed National College Health Assessment data from more than 78,000 students across 125 U.S. institutions.
The researchers found that belonging generally increased with greater student-organization involvement, while loneliness decreased modestly. But psychological distress followed a more complicated pattern: it was lower at low-to-moderate levels of involvement and rose slightly at the highest involvement levels.
That finding should not be interpreted as proof that joining “too many” organizations causes distress.
But it does challenge the assumption that more involvement must always be better.
A schedule can reach the point where community participation starts competing with sleep, coursework, exercise, meals, relationships, or recovery.
The objective is not maximum involvement.
It is sustainable involvement that actually provides something valuable.
One Meaningful Group May Matter More Than Five Résumé Lines
A student may technically belong to five organizations without feeling known in any of them.
Another may belong to one organization where people notice when they do not show up.
Those experiences are not interchangeable.
This does not mean everyone needs an intensely close community.
Some people prefer broader networks with lighter relationships. Others feel better with a few close connections.
The important distinction is whether the involvement matches what the person actually needs.
For example, someone might join an organization because:
- the activity itself is enjoyable;
- people there provide friendship, mentoring, shared identity, practical support, purpose, or opportunities to contribute.
Those are different from participating exclusively because “I should be doing more.”
The second motivation is not automatically harmful. Career-oriented activities can be useful.
But when every commitment becomes instrumental—another credential, another achievement, another networking opportunity—the social value of participation can disappear beneath performance pressure.
Belonging Does Not Require Being Popular
Community engagement can also be misunderstood as having a large social network.
It does not have to mean that.
Research on U.S. college students continues to show why belonging deserves attention even when people are surrounded by peers.
A 2026 study examining fraternity- and sorority-affiliated and unaffiliated college students analyzed Spring 2023 National College Health Assessment data. Across the sample, 50.8% screened positive for loneliness, even though 88.3% reported a sense of belonging.
Those numbers illustrate something important:
Loneliness and belonging are related, but human social experience is not binary.
Someone can feel connected to a campus while occasionally feeling lonely.
A person can have many acquaintances without having someone they trust.
Someone else can have a tiny social circle and feel adequately supported.
The goal is not to accumulate people.
It is to have enough of the kinds of relationships and communities that matter to you.
Community Can Provide More Than Friendship
Another reason engagement matters is that communities perform different functions.
A friend may provide emotional support.
A teammate may provide accountability.
A professor may provide mentoring.
A volunteer organization may provide purpose.
A family member may provide continuity.
A club may provide shared interests.
A faith community may provide meaning or tradition for people who choose to participate in one.
A workplace may provide professional identity and regular social contact.
No single relationship has to provide everything.
That can take pressure off friendship itself.
People sometimes imagine that social well-being requires finding one perfect group of close friends.
Real social networks are often more distributed.
You might have someone you exercise with but rarely discuss personal problems with.
Another person might be the friend you call when life becomes difficult.
A colleague might understand your work stress better than anyone else.
A neighbor might simply be someone who reliably says hello.
These relationships can coexist without needing to become equally intimate.
Athletes Already Know What Structured Community Can Feel Like
Sport provides a useful example because community is often built directly into participation.
A team gives athletes repeated contact.
People share goals.
They experience wins and losses together.
They practice at predictable times.
Roles are visible.
Teammates notice absences.
There are rituals, routines, jokes, expectations, and shared memories.
That environment can create belonging almost automatically.
The challenge becomes more obvious when sport disappears.
Injury.
Graduation.
Retirement.
Transfer.
Roster cuts.
Moving to another city.
Suddenly someone who rarely had to plan social contact must build it intentionally.
This is one reason athlete resilience should not focus exclusively on mental toughness or physical recovery.
The athlete may also be losing a community.
CPCWA’s guide to loneliness beyond older adulthood explores how disconnection can affect younger adults as well as older people and why loneliness should not be treated as a problem belonging to only one age group.
Community Engagement Should Not Become Another Wellness Assignment
There is a predictable way to misuse research like this.
Someone reads that community engagement is associated with flourishing and creates a new checklist:
Join a club.
Volunteer.
Call family.
Attend events.
Make friends.
Network.
Now social connection has become six additional tasks.
That misses the point.
For someone already overwhelmed, the first question should not necessarily be:
What should I add?
It may be:
Where am I already spending time, and which parts of that life could become more connected?
A student who already spends hours studying might occasionally study beside someone else.
A runner who always trains alone might try one recurring group session.
A parent who spends weekends at children’s activities might talk regularly with another parent there.
A professional might choose one recurring lunch with colleagues rather than attending another evening networking event.
A volunteer might remain with one organization long enough to become familiar with people instead of continually trying new opportunities.
Connection does not always require a new calendar entry.
Sometimes it requires changing how an existing one is experienced.
Contribution Can Be Part Of Belonging
There is another side to community that receives less attention.
People do not only need support.
Many people also want to feel useful.
Community engagement can provide opportunities to contribute rather than simply receive.
Someone can help organize equipment for a recreational team.
Tutor another student.
Bring food to a community event.
Volunteer at an animal shelter.
Help a neighbor.
Mentor someone newer to an organization.
Take responsibility for a small recurring task.
The psychological value of these activities should not be exaggerated. Volunteering is not a treatment for depression or anxiety, and helping others does not mean someone should ignore their own needs.
But contribution can change the social question from:
Do these people like me?
to:
Is there something useful I can do here?
For someone uncomfortable with highly social environments, that can be a much easier entry point.
Community Is Not Automatically Healthy
Belonging itself should not be romanticized.
Groups can also create pressure.
Teams can normalize playing through unsafe injuries.
Workplaces can glorify overwork.
Friend groups can reinforce substance use or other risky behavior.
Online communities can amplify hostility.
Organizations can exclude people who do not conform.
A person can technically belong somewhere and still feel unsafe, judged, exploited, or exhausted.
That means quality matters.
A useful community should allow some degree of authenticity and reasonable boundaries.
You should not have to continually perform usefulness to remain accepted.
You should be able to miss an event occasionally.
Disagreement should not automatically threaten membership.
Participation should not consistently undermine sleep, health, finances, school, work, or important relationships.
Belonging that requires chronic self-neglect is not the resilience goal.
Busy People May Need Subtraction Before Addition
This is particularly relevant for high-achieving students and professionals.
When life feels disconnected, the instinct may be to add another activity.
Sometimes the better move is subtraction.
Imagine a student involved in five organizations.
Two feel meaningful.
One provides useful career experience.
Two are mostly attended out of guilt.
Dropping one of the guilt-driven commitments might create enough time to stay after a meaningful organization’s meeting and talk with people.
The calendar becomes less impressive.
The social experience becomes richer.
This is not an argument for quitting responsibilities impulsively.
Some obligations cannot simply be removed.
Work, caregiving, financial needs, academics, health conditions, transportation, and family responsibilities constrain people’s choices.
The broader point is that available time and energy are finite resources.
Community requires some of both.
Loneliness Is Not Solved By Filling Every Empty Hour
Recent data illustrate why this issue deserves attention.
A Trellis Strategies analysis of its 2024 Student Financial Wellness Survey, covering nearly 44,000 college students, found that 57% reported feeling lonely at least sometimes.
College campuses are hardly empty places.
Students can spend entire days surrounded by thousands of people and still feel disconnected.
That is why loneliness cannot be reduced to physical proximity.
Nor can it necessarily be solved by adding activities.
The useful question is not:
How many people did I see today?
It may be:
Did I experience any relationship in which I felt recognized, supported, useful, comfortable, or understood?
The answer will not always be yes.
No one needs a deeply meaningful social encounter every day.
But over time, the difference between activity and connection becomes important.
Small Communities Still Count
The word community can sound large.
It can bring to mind organizations, campuses, neighborhoods, churches, leagues, or civic groups.
Community can also be tiny.
Three classmates who regularly study together.
Two neighbors who walk their dogs at the same time.
A recreational team.
A recurring volunteer shift.
A small group of coworkers who eat lunch together.
A weekly game night.
A parent group.
A handful of people who meet to run.
A community does not need a formal name, membership card, leadership structure, or large attendance.
What matters is repeated interaction and some meaningful sense of connection.
That fits with the broader idea behind low-pressure socializing: relationships often develop through familiarity rather than one dramatic effort to “find your people.”
Ask What An Activity Gives Back
One way to evaluate a crowded schedule is to look beyond productivity.
For each major recurring commitment, ask:
Does this give me anything besides another obligation?
Maybe it provides:
- connection, enjoyment, movement, meaning, learning, contribution, support, creativity, spiritual practice, mentoring, or genuine career development;
- or perhaps it primarily provides pressure, guilt, exhaustion, comparison, conflict, or the fear of falling behind.
Most activities will contain a mixture.
A demanding class can still be meaningful.
A sports team can create both stress and belonging.
A job can be exhausting and provide valued relationships.
A volunteer role can feel rewarding some weeks and draining during others.
The goal is not to categorize every activity as good or bad.
It is to notice whether a schedule contains anything restorative or connecting, rather than only demands.
When Community Is Not Enough
Social connection is one component of mental well-being.
It is not a substitute for mental-health care.
Someone experiencing persistent depression, significant anxiety, severe sleep disruption, increasing substance use, inability to function normally, or other concerning changes should not be told simply to join a club or spend more time with friends.
Professional support may be appropriate.
A CDC systematic review of college mental-health interventions emphasizes that college students experience substantial levels of anxiety, depression, and other mental-health concerns and that trained healthcare professionals can play an important role in assessment, treatment, access to care, and appropriate support. CDC research on college mental-health support also emphasizes the importance of reducing barriers to accessing care.
Community and clinical care are not competing options.
Someone can benefit from supportive relationships and professional treatment at the same time.
A Better Goal Than Staying Busy
The August 2026 BYU study does not give us a formula for the perfect social life.
It does not tell students how many organizations to join.
It does not prove that community engagement prevents mental illness.
And it does not mean someone who struggles with depression or anxiety simply needs to become more involved.
What it adds is evidence supporting a more useful distinction.
Engagement across peer, family, school, and church communities was associated with greater flourishing among the students studied, and flourishing in turn was associated with lower depression and anxiety symptoms. Peer engagement showed the strongest association with flourishing. The PLOS Mental Health community engagement study provides the full methods and results.
Meanwhile, newer research using a much larger U.S. college sample suggests that involvement is not a simple more-is-better equation: belonging increased with organization participation but eventually plateaued, while psychological distress showed a more complicated pattern at the highest participation levels. Research on U.S. student organization involvement reinforces the need to think about quality and sustainability rather than simply accumulating commitments.
For people already living under pressure, that distinction matters.
You do not necessarily need another activity.
You may need one place where people know your name.
One team where you are useful.
One group where missing a week is noticed without becoming a failure.
One relationship where you do not have to perform.
A calendar measures how much time is occupied.
It cannot tell you whether you belong.
