Print Column: We’re More Affluent and Connected Than Ever, So Why Do We Feel So Alone and Unhappy?
MINOT, N.D. — “The average person in the U.S. has only one close friend, according to a study published in the American Sociological Review.”
That’s something NBC News reported earlier this year.
“One in four people have no confidantes at all,” they also reported, and some 75 percent of people say they’re unsatisfied with the friendships they do have.
Clay Routledge is a professor of psychology and behavioral science researcher at North Dakota State University. We discussed this topic on my podcast recently, ahead of a policy forum he’ll be participating in at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington D.C.
According to him, “20 percent of millennials say they are alone all or some of the time.”
