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Until the root of selfishness is sufficiently weakened by God's grace, true friendship,

which includes loyalty and faithfulness, cannot grow. From face to face by Steve Wilkins.

In our current series here on Brightheart on being human, we're talking about four aspects of

life where a man or a woman can grow, improve, and become more fruitful as a result.

And those are the physical, the spiritual, the social, and the vocational.

Now, last week, we introduced that third category, the social, looking particularly at

social graces, what they are, why they're important, and how to get them.

This week, we'll be talking about friendship.

Why has friendship fallen on such hard times?

Is it the rise of the internet, social media, the smartphone?

Is it the decline in cultural cohesion as American society has turned from a central culture surrounding

its shared Christian identity and descent into apostasy? Is it simply the continued fallout

of the industrial revolution and the delocalization of the American family? A combination of all

the above? Whatever it is, we can be pretty certain that it is real, that friendship has indeed fallen on hard times.

Many studies could be proffered to demonstrate this in terms of data.

Like the comparison between a 1990 Gallup study where only 3% of Americans surveyed said they had no close friends in a 2021 APS study, where that number had quadrupled, fully 12% of American adults saying they had no close friends in a 2021 APS study where that number had quadrupled,

fully 12% of American adults saying they had zero close friends.

Or you could compare the same two studies on a different question.

In 1990, 33% of respondents said that they had 10 or more close friends.

In 2021, that number had plummeted to 13%, nearly a threefold decrease.

Or still another, what percent of U.S. adults have a best friend? In 1990, 75 percent, three-quarters

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