RESEARCH NOTE
Can Togetherness Ever Hurt? When More Time Went With Worse Results
Sometimes, yes. A handful of studies found more shared time going with worse results, or found the usual link missing. None of them shows that the time together caused the harm.
The saying has exceptions
Most studies of family time point one way. People who share more of it tend to report closer relationships, by a small margin.
A few results point the other way, or nowhere. This page collects them. They come from different fields and measure different things, so they do not add up to one finding.
Couples short of money
One recent paper puts the saying in its title: "Do couples who play together stay together?" It followed 1,382 newly married US couples over three rounds of surveys (Family Process, 2023). We read the summary of this study, not the full paper.
Despite the title, it did not measure divorce. It measured how satisfied and how committed the partners were.
The summary reports that the benefit of shared free time depended on money. For lower-income couples under financial distress, more shared leisure went with worse commitment outcomes.
As we read the summary, the pattern showed up only at the far ends of both income and shared leisure. So this is a result about the far ends of the range. It does not describe most couples.
Grandparents and grown grandchildren
A study followed 374 grandparents and 356 adult grandchildren across seven rounds of surveys from 1985 to 2004 (The Gerontologist, 2016). We read the summary only.
It separated two things that usually get lumped together: how close the pair felt, and how often they were in contact. The result: "For both grandparents and adult grandchildren, greater affinity reduced depressive symptoms and more frequent contact increased symptoms."
Feeling close went with better mood. More contact without the closeness went with worse mood.
This study is about adults, the outcome is depressive symptoms, and it says nothing about play. It is here because it shows contact and closeness are different things.
Fathers' play and children's behavior
A review of father-child play gathered 39 publications on children up to age 10 (Children, 2021). We read the full paper.
It sorted the results by the kind of outcome. For emotional and behavioral outcomes it reported: "Of the 12 Emotional/Behavioural child outcomes, associations were mixed". The count was 6 positive links, 5 negative links and 1 with no effect.
The review also reports that in one study, a father overstimulating the child during play was related to poorer outcomes.
The authors note a limit on all of this: "relatively few studies explored the same play/outcome relationships". Each result rests on a small number of studies. More is on our page about what a father's play does.
Unstructured time with mothers
A study used time diaries from a long-running US survey of families, from 1997 and 2002, to ask which kinds of time with a mother went with better results for the child (Demography, 2014). We read the full paper. Its method holds constant the things about a child and a family that do not change, which makes it stronger on cause than a one-time survey.
The authors conclude that "not all types of parental time benefit child development". Educational and structured time with mothers went with better thinking and behavior scores. Unstructured time, meaning television and unspecified leisure, was related slightly negatively.
Two cautions apply.
- The sizes are tiny. One hour a week of educational time with a mother went with a gain of 0.014 standard deviations on a problem-solving test. A standard deviation is a measure of how spread out scores are, and 0.014 of one is a very small step.
- The outcomes are test scores and behavior ratings. The study did not measure closeness.
A sample where low play sat beside high satisfaction
This one is not a harm. It is a case where the expected pattern was missing.
A study of 70 urban Turkish families found that "the level of family leisure involvement and enjoyment in general was low, and their satisfaction with family life was comparatively high" (Journal of Leisure Research, 2009). We read the full paper. More is on our page about whether the link holds outside the United States.
Why there are so few of these
Part of the reason may be how the question gets asked. One researcher, S. M. Shaw, argued in a 1997 critique that "research on the benefits of family leisure is likely to fail to reveal conflictual or negative outcomes of family participation" (Journal of Leisure Research, 1997). A study built to look for benefits is poorly placed to find costs.
What these results do and do not say
- They do not show that time together causes harm. These are links. One untested possibility is that the arrow runs the other way: a couple under money strain, or a grandparent with low mood, may end up spending more time with family for that very reason.
- They do not cancel the main finding. Across 23 studies, families who do more together still rate their family life a little higher (Journal of Family Theory and Review, 2017).
- They do show the saying has conditions. More time went with worse results where money was short, where contact came without closeness, and for some kinds of play and some kinds of time.
A related question is what happens when someone does not want to be there. That is covered on our page about forced family fun.
The full picture
This page covers one question. The whole verdict on the saying, with its history and every source, is in our research paper: A family that plays together stays together: is it true?