IKEA Report: Many Americans Seek Solitude in Their Cars

About 22,000 people from all over the world took an Ikea survey about how they feel at home, and the results were often discouraging. Americans, for example, feel less comfortable at home than they did in years past. "In other words, 35% of people who live in cities don’t feel at home in their house or apartment," Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan writes for Fast Company. Campbell-Dollaghan speculates that this may be because Americans are more likely to be renters than they were in years past, and more likely to move more often.

The lack of comfort in one’s home is also changing people's relationships with their cars. "One person in Rome reported going out to sit in their car on the street to find a fleeting moment of 'mental privacy.' They weren’t alone: 'Almost half of Americans (45%) go to their car, outside of the home, to have a private moment to themselves,'" Campbell Dllaghan reports.