Parallel play for adults means spending time with someone while you each do your own thing: you read while a friend knits, you both work on laptops at the same table, or you sit on a call in silence while you each study. You are together, but nobody has to entertain anybody. It works because it gives you company without the effort of conversation.
The term comes from child development, and for a long time it was a stage kids were supposed to grow out of. Lately adults have started using it for a kind of time together many of us already liked and never had a word for.
Roomie Cafe is a free focus timer you share with friends, which is a form of parallel play online, so we are not neutral here. We cover the idea first and come back to the app near the end.
What parallel play means
Where the term comes from
In 1932 the American sociologist Mildred Parten published a study of 40 nursery school children. She watched them during free play, one minute at a time, and sorted what each child was doing into categories of social participation, from unoccupied and solitary play up to play with others [1]. One of those categories was parallel play: children playing next to each other with similar toys, without trying to influence what the other one does [2].
In children it usually shows up around two years old and fades as kids move on to playing together [2]. That is where the word picked up its reputation as a phase.
What it looks like in adults
The adult version keeps the core of Parten's definition: you are near each other, you are doing your own activity, and nobody is steering the other person. What changes is the reason. A toddler plays in parallel because cooperative play is still hard. An adult does it by choice, because it feels good to have someone around while you get on with your life.
A few examples:
- Two friends at a café, one writing, one answering email, chatting for five minutes every hour.
- A couple on the sofa, one reading, one playing a game, both happy.
- Housemates cooking separate dinners in the same kitchen.
- Coworkers on a video call with cameras off, each on their own task, saying hi at the start and bye at the end.
Why adults are rediscovering parallel play
Friendship takes hours, and hours are scarce
Jeffrey Hall at the University of Kansas asked how much time it takes to turn an acquaintance into a friend. In his study of adults who had recently moved and first year students, more hours together went with closer friendships [3]. His university's summary puts rough numbers on it: about 50 hours to become a casual friend, about 90 to become a friend, and more than 200 to become a close friend [4].
Adult calendars do not have 200 spare hours for dinners and drinks. Parallel play lets you count time you were going to spend anyway, on chores, reading or work, as time together.
Loneliness is common
In 2023 the US Surgeon General issued an advisory on loneliness and isolation, reporting that about one in two adults in America said they had experienced loneliness, even before the pandemic [5]. Strong social ties also matter for health. A meta analysis of 148 studies with 308,849 participants found that people with stronger social relationships had a 50% greater likelihood of survival over the study periods [6].
Parallel play will not fix loneliness by itself. It does lower the cost of seeing people, which makes it easier to see them more often.
It takes the pressure off
A lot of socializing is performance: keeping the conversation going, being good company, having something interesting to say. Parallel play removes most of that. Silence is the default, so it is never awkward. For introverts, tired people, and many autistic and ADHD adults, this can be the difference between seeing friends and staying in.
Remote work made it obvious
When offices emptied, plenty of people found that what they missed was not meetings but the background sense of others working nearby. If that sounds familiar, our guide to working from home alone looks at why the quiet can get heavy and what helps.
Parallel play vs body doubling
The two ideas overlap a lot. Body doubling is working on a task while another person is present, usually to help you start or keep going. Researchers who surveyed 220 people about it described body doubling as a range, from quiet background presence to active accountability [7]. Parallel play is closer to the quiet end of that range, and it is not only about getting tasks done.
So all body doubling is a kind of parallel play, but not all parallel play is body doubling. Reading next to your partner on a Sunday is parallel play. Asking a friend to sit with you while you finally do your taxes is body doubling.
Does having someone nearby help you work?
It depends on the task. A meta analysis of 241 studies with nearly 24,000 people found that the presence of others had small effects overall: it tended to speed up simple tasks and slow down complex ones, and it slightly helped accuracy on simple tasks while hurting it on complex ones [8]. Those studies mostly measured people being watched or working alongside others in a lab, which is not the same as a friend quietly doing their own thing across the table. Still, it is a useful hint. Parallel play suits routine work, chores and hobbies well. For hard, new thinking, give yourself more distance or a quieter setup.
10 parallel play ideas you can try this week
In person
- A reading hour. Each person brings a book. Sit together, read for an hour, then talk about what you read if you feel like it. Silent book clubs run on this format.
- A café work session. Pick a café, both bring laptops, agree on a stop time, and get a coffee together at the halfway point.
- Chore company. You fold laundry while your friend does their meal prep in the same kitchen. Chores are simple tasks, which is where company helps most [8]. Our guide to body doubling for cleaning has a full routine.
- A craft night. Knitting, drawing, model building, sewing, a puzzle each. Hands busy, mouths free if you want them.
- Library or study room afternoons. A quiet setting makes the rules clear without anyone having to say them.
- Side by side gaming. Two people, two handheld consoles or two different games, on the same sofa.
Online
- A muted video call. Join a call with cameras on or off, say what you are doing, mute, and check back in at the end.
- A shared timer. Start a focus timer at the same time as a friend and post one line each when it ends. This is the lightest version and works across time zones.
- A study session with friends. Students can split a long evening into blocks with breaks together; we cover formats in how to study with friends online.
- A "doing my own thing" voice channel. Some friend groups keep a quiet voice channel open on Discord while each person works, plays or reads.
Pick one, and set it up once this week. Parallel play gets easier to suggest after the first time, because both of you know what it feels like.
How to do parallel play online with friends
Online parallel play has one problem in person parallel play does not: you cannot glance up and see that the other person is still there. These rules fix most of it:
- Agree on the start and end. "From 8 to 9, then we stop" works better than an open call.
- Say what you are doing, in one line. It makes the session feel shared and gives you something to report back on.
- Make cameras optional. Many people find being on camera tiring. If that includes you, read body doubling without a camera.
- Report back at the end. One sentence each: what you got done, what is next.
- Keep it small. Two to four people is enough. Big rooms full of strangers feel different.
If you mostly want the feeling of others working nearby, a shared timer is enough. If you need someone to hold you to a plan, a stricter format with a booked partner may suit you better.
Where Roomie Cafe fits
Roomie Cafe is built around online parallel play with people you know. You press start, pick what you are working on and a length from 5 to 90 minutes, and you see which friends are focusing right now and on what. There is no webcam, no microphone and nothing to book. People see only your name, what you are working on and your timer.
When the timer ends you write one line about what you got done. It goes to your history and, if you like, to your friends' feeds, where they can cheer and comment. You can also share a focus area with friends, so a group project has one running total and a team goal. Roomie Cafe is the only focus network where you get things done.
It runs on the web and as an iPhone, iPad and Mac app, and it is free with no limit on sessions. Our manifesto explains why we think quiet company beats noise.
FAQ
What is parallel play in adults?
It is spending time near someone while you each do your own activity, without trying to steer what the other person does. Reading next to a friend, working side by side at a café, or sitting on a quiet call while you both study all count.
Is parallel play healthy for adults?
For most people, yes. It is a low effort way to spend more time with people you like, which matters because adult friendships need time and loneliness is common. If one person in a relationship wants more direct attention, talk about it rather than assuming quiet time together is enough.
What is an example of parallel play in a relationship?
One partner reads while the other plays a video game in the same room, or both cook different things in the same kitchen. You are together without needing to talk or do the same activity.
What is the difference between parallel play and body doubling?
Parallel play is any time spent doing your own thing next to someone. Body doubling is a kind of parallel play aimed at getting a specific task done, often used by people who struggle to start or stay on task.
Can you do parallel play online?
Yes. A muted video or voice call, a study session with friends, or a shared focus timer where you see who is working all give you company while you each do your own thing.
References
- Parten, M. B. (1932). Social participation among pre-school children. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 27(3), 243 to 269.
- Wikipedia. Parallel play. Retrieved 24 October 2026.
- Hall, J. A. (2019). How many hours does it take to make a friend? Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 36(4), 1278 to 1296.
- University of Kansas. Study reveals number of hours it takes to make a friend (2018). Retrieved 24 October 2026.
- Office of the US Surgeon General. (2023). Our epidemic of loneliness and isolation. US Department of Health and Human Services.
- Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., & Layton, J. B. (2010). Social relationships and mortality risk: A meta-analytic review. PLoS Medicine, 7(7), e1000316.
- Eagle, T., Baltaxe-Admony, L. B., & Ringland, K. E. (2023). Proposing body doubling as a continuum of space/time and mutuality: An investigation with neurodivergent participants. ASSETS 2023, ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility.
- Bond, C. F., & Titus, L. J. (1983). Social facilitation: A meta-analysis of 241 studies. Psychological Bulletin, 94(2), 265 to 292.