Are long distance relationships more common now

Mark is the three-time 1 New York Times bestselling author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck, as well as other titles. His books have sold around 20 million copies, been translated into more than 65 languages, and reached number one in more than a dozen countries. In 2023, a feature film about his life and ideas was released worldwide by Universal Pictures.

Its hard to say for sure whether long-distance relationships are more common than they were a generation or two ago, though some scholars suspect they are. Theyre there, and we think theyre on the increase, says Laura Stafford, a communication scholar at Bowling Green State University who has studied long-distance relationships.

Almost all day, Davidge, who lives in South Carolina, is in touch with his girlfriend, Angela Davila, who lives in Virginia and is job hunting. Despite being separated by a six-hour drive, they shoot the bull and stuff over FaceTime when Davidge has a break at work, they call each other in the car, and they watch TV together at the end of the day using a website that lets them share a screen. Its almost like being in the same room together, he says of their tandem streaming.

The way Davidge and Davila maintain their relationship wont impress anyone familiar with the internet and smartphones. But, considering the fullness of human history, it is astounding that two people in separate places can keep up such a rich relationship without much financial or logistical hassleand think nothing of it.

Exact numbers aside, whats certain is that long-distance relationshipsa term Ill use from now on to refer to couples living apart voluntarilyare different today than they were not just 500 or 50 years ago, but even 15. As economic and technological developments are prying more couples apart geographically, some of those same developments are making those couples love lives more closely resemble those of couples who live in the same place. The distance is still there, but it feels shorter and shorter.

But the many forms that long-distance relationships take make them really hard to count: Couples (married or not) might live apart because they attend different colleges, they have jobs in different cities (or countries), one or both of them are in the military, one or both of them are in prison, or one or both of them have moved to take care of an aging parent. Further complicating matters, these arrangements can be relatively short in duration or last for years.