Academic studies can be fascinating... and totally confusing. So we decided to strip away all of the scientific jargon and break them down for you. The BackgroundThe popular line in research is that single people are less happy and healthy than their coupled counterparts. But more and more people -- over half of the US population, in fact -- are spending an increasing amount of their lives single, whether it's because they delayed marriage, got divorced or simply didn't want to couple off.