"Wo sind all meine Freunde hin?"

You work 50 to 60 hour work weeks. On weekends, you shuttle the kids to their sports practices and playdates. On Saturday nights, if you're lucky, you get a sitter so that you and your significant other can engage in that ritual meant to keep things zesty "date night" but at times you long for another type of date. Perhaps, during those rare moments you have for reflection, when your fingers are not working your BlackBerry as you sit in commuter traffic, you think about how your social life has changed (or evaporated) since you were a swinging postcollegiate, sharing a loft, say, with three close friends. (…)

Us? Lonely? With the wife and the kids and the parents and the jokesters at the office and the never having a moment to think? Well, yes. That's what experts who study these matters say. In June 2006, sociologists at Duke University and the University of Arizona, for instance, provided the most recent statistical analysis of the problem. Their report, "Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks Over Two Decades," announced, among other things, that the number of friends with whom Americans discuss important matters has shrunk as much as 33 percent over a span of nearly 20 years. This problem is particularly acute for young, educated men, who have lost an above-average number of "discussion partners" — down from 3.5 in 1985 to 2.0 in 2004 — according to the study.

In dem hier veröffentlichten, durchaus anspruchsvollen Artikel aus dem Magazin "Best Life" geht es zwar zuvorderst um amerikanische Verhältnisse, aber ich frage mich, ob sie in Deutschland so viel anders sind.