Kids & Family
How 12% of Americans Spent Previous Christmas Alone
Study of how some Americans spent the previous Xmas in boredom and loneliness
A recent study by a marriage relationship service, has found that 12% of Americans spent the previous Christmas on their own. The figure is almost same across the pond; it stands at 17%.
While most of us were with family and friends at Christmas, there was a huge number of people who had neither.
As Americans, we keep hearing about elderly individuals and their dire social isolation. However, this time it's not elderly people. The study was done on a younger age group and particularly, individuals who have easy access to the internet and mobile devices.
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Azad believes one of the main reasons for this isolation is the breakdown of our family system, easy access to websites/apps has encouraged an influx of short-term relationships, which never flower into families or more extensive clans. This surely cannot be healthy in the long term.
Our study drove us to a student of aeronautical engineering who wanted to return home for the holidays but did not. Sighting the boarding money his parents would ask him to pay, thus choosing to remain back and spending Christmas all alone.
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A woman, stating her age as 39 shared her situation anonymously, and it goes like this "I feel we have to interact more. I have no one close by and this loneliness really haunts me. People should live more as a family and look after one another. I frequently stroll to nearby Stores just to talk to somebody, I'll share a joke and perhaps giggle with them, they don't realize how desperate I am for human company."
Azad reasoned that the study does not speak for whole population because it was done on the web and most individuals may not have been able to take a part because of various reasons. However, the most terrifying discovery of our study was that even younger people are victim of social isolation."
In its capacity of a match-making service is trying to stop this dangerous trend by bypassing dating and connecting individuals who really want to get together and begin a family through marriage.