The flip side of the happiness trend is unhappiness, and in particular loneliness and depression. And depression is linked to all kinds of other problems. For example, a study by Brown Medical School (US) found that men who suffer from depression increase their risk of heart disease by 12% (and if they’re pessimists, the risk increases by 18%). Is this a real trend caused by the likes of individualism, living alone, and social exclusion (lack of community) or is it just that people have got time to think about themselves too much these days? Once upon a time depression was just part of the human condition. In the future it will, increasingly, be treated as an illness.