IN SOPHOCLES'S play "Philoctetes" the titular hero is abandoned on a dreary island. The punishment seems drastic even by mythic standards. Ten years alone in a cave, screaming over a wound that refuses to heal? Surely death would have been better. But these days a life of solitude is looking much brighter. The proliferation of solitary dwellers is the subject of Eric Klinenberg's new book, "Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone".Why the rosy outlook? Mr Klinenberg, a professor of sociology at New York University, suggests that Americans are now more likely to view living alone as a way of life rather than a transitional stage. This is a natural product of economic development, the communications revolution and mass urbanisation. When Joseph Schumpeter predicted the decomposition of the family unit in 1942, the very notion begged disbelief. But today his forecast looks prescient. Individuals can often lead a more comfortable life when free of family ties.Despite America's culture of individualism, a solo home-life is only just becoming mainstream. About one in seven American adults now live alone. Other nations boast even higher rates of independent living: 30% of all households in Japan contain just one person, and in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark the figure is 40-45%. We spoke with Mr Klinenberg about the pleasures and perils of living alone.In 1957 a group of psychologists surveyed American attitudes about marriage. They found that about 80% of adults thought that people who preferred to be unmarried were sick, neurotic or immoral. Today, that seems like a hysterical answer. Our opinions about being single have changed dramatically over the last 50 years.Well, one of the big changes is the rise of the women's movement, and the dramatic incorporation of women into the paid labour force; coupled with the rise of birth control and the change in our attitudes about sex. You have two of the rewards of marriage—economic security and sexual activity—becoming decoupled from the institution. When that happened, more and more people began to delay marriage or break out of bad marriages. Our attitudes about being single have been revolutionised.I enjoyed Kate Bollick's essay "All the Single Ladies" in the Atlantic. It is a first-person account of becoming a singleton. What I saw in her essay was a socially connected and sexually active woman who was committed to her aspirations and mostly satisfied with her life. She also beautifully captured the way in which living alone for a young woman goes from being a sign of success (an achievement of domestic autonomy) to somehow being a sign of social failure when she reaches her mid-thirties.She and I are doing something similar, which is calling attention to an experience that has become incredibly common. Singleton life seems to be something that every person experiences as a private matter, but in fact it's a major and widely shared part of our social condition. We need to step back and think about how we got here and what it means for us now.I haven't seen a major public response yet. Our generalised anxiety about being alone distracts us from the real dangers related to it, many of which I learned about when writing a book about the 1995 heatwave in Chicago, when hundreds of people died alone. There are specific things that we can do to make living alone (or ageing alone) a less isolating experience, including the development of independent living facilities for old people who want to preserve their autonomy but need additional support and services.I now live with my wife and two young children. But I lived alone in graduate school and really enjoyed the experience. I enjoyed the freedom to do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it, whether that meant going out late at night or leaving the country on a whim. I enjoyed the solitude. It allowed me to be productive in my work and in my own personal life. I look back on it as a key experience. For me, it was a pivotal point. It was how I grew up. Now that we delay marriage as long as we do, living alone is a vital part of becoming an adult.

"Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone" by Eric Klinenberg is published by Penguin Press and is out now