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Preliminary findings of a British study suggest that today’s teens are far less likely to have a best friend than teens of twenty years ago. In 1986, one in eight 16-year-olds said they had NO best friend whom they trusted; in 2006, that proportion rose to one in five...The author of a study of Youth Trends finds the decline in the number of youth with best friends worrisome. "There is a lot of research showing that friendship is important for children's happiness,“ says Stephen Collishaw of the Institute of Psychiatry. “Separation from a best friend can contribute to poor mental health, and if children are experiencing stressful circumstances such as problems at school or home, having a best friend helps them cope and increases their resilience to overcome them," he said in a recent interview in The Guardian.