Sartre's Revenge

The American Sociological Review, the second best of the broad-topic sociology journals, recently published an article on the isolation and loneliness (pdf, actual article) of American citizens, drawing on the contrasts between a twenty-year-old data set and contemporary findings. The result? We're lonely. Really lonely. The Washington Post reports:

Whereas nearly three-quarters of people in 1985 reported they had a friend in whom they could confide, only half in 2004 said they could count on such support. The number of people who said they counted a neighbor as a confidant dropped by more than half, from about 19 percent to about 8 percent.
 
The results, being published today in the American Sociological Review, took researchers by surprise because they had not expected to see such a steep decline in close social ties.

This is generating a lot of really interesting substantive discussion over at Metafilter, which isn't usually known for going several hours without a flameout. Unfortunately, the ASA won't allow direct access to the actual article (pdf link above) for too long; their partner, JSTORS, sells the online service. So get it while you can.