The following is excerpted from an online article posted by Relevant
The loneliest guy in America probably doesn’t look lonely.
He has unread texts, a job, a group chat full of memes and maybe even a church he attends when life isn’t actively falling apart. He knows people. He’s around people. His phone has never been more full of people. Still, if something devastating happened — the kind of thing that requires someone to show up with food, a spare key and the emotional range to sit in silence without making it weird — the list might get uncomfortably short
The numbers behind the loneliness crisis are grim. A 2021 American Perspectives Survey found 15% of men reported having no close friends, up from 3% in 1990. Men were also less likely than women to say they had received emotional support from a friend in the previous week. Meanwhile, the U.S. surgeon general has warned that lacking social connection can raise the risk of premature death as much as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day and is associated with higher risks of heart disease, stroke, depression and anxiety.
And this is where the Church should be paying attention, because young men are already looking for something.
The rise in young men turning toward faith should not make the Church smug. It should make the Church sober. Men are walking back through the doors, or at least looking through the windows, at a moment when many are quietly desperate for belonging. The question is whether they’ll find a crowd to stand in or a body that actually needs them
Source: Relevant
https://relevantmagazine.com/faith/men-have-never-had-fewer-friends-what-can-the-church-do-about-that/