The Anti-Social Century | Americans are now spending more time alone than ever. It’s changing our personalities, our politics, and even our relationship to reality
The Anti-Social Century
What happened in the 1970s? Klinenberg, the sociologist, notes a shift in political priorities: The government dramatically slowed its construction of public spaces. “Places that used to anchor community life, like libraries and school gyms and union halls, have become less accessible or shuttered altogether,” he told me. Putnam points, among other things, to new moral values, such as the embrace of unbridled individualism. But he found that two of the most important factors were by then ubiquitous technologies: the automobile and the television set.
The crux of the issue.
There used to be places for people to congregate.
Now if you're not spending money, there's very few places to go and just coexist with people. Every place you can go is going to squeeze every cent possible out of you.
It's been like this for a while, even in my partying days I'd always pick a house party over a night at the bars.
Who would want to go to
libraries and school gyms and union halls
to have fun? "Hey guys, let's all go hang out at the, uh, school gym! No? How about the union hall?"
Maybe people had lower standards back before technology made having fun alone at home easy.
I'm almost 40. I barely leave my house and can go a week without going further than my porch. Less than a dozen people have seen my face in the last month. Weekends and holidays are becoming mountains of isolation I have to cross without the distraction of work. I don't have people I can have heart to heart conversations with. All my experiences with professional psychology have been horrid and expensive. I can feel myself becoming socially maladjusted and mentally crazed. Drinking also effects my cholesterol levels so I had to cut that out, so no social outlets via bars, taverns, etc.
The saddest thing is that this is the most prosperous I've ever been in my life and I primarily attribute my minimal contact with other people for that.
Look up furry groups around you. Start at the closest major city and work up. No, you don't have to be a furry to go to one. The reason why I'm suggesting it is because furries are some of the most welcoming and accepting people you'll ever meet (I'm totally not biased tho). Chances are they'll be some of the best friends you've ever had; so long as you're as accepting as them. They also tend to have a wide array of interests, with tech and tech accessories being one of the most common.
Edit: There are furry groups for car enthusiasts, arcades, rock climbing, horror enthusiasts, roller skating, skateparks, six flags and other stuff, all in my area. So, no, you kinda don't need to be a furry because the meetups range from furry specific to more general interests.
I have to say that, in spite of surely well earned the reputation furries have for being nice people, that is one of the weirdest suggestions I've ever heard.
Substitute furries for any other sexual endeavor.
Look up BDSM groups around you. No, you don’t have to be a dom/sub to go to one.
Look up gender transition groups around you. No, you don’t have to be trans to go to one.
YES, YOU FUCKING DO!
Play team videogames.
Doesn't matter if you suck, pick any and get a mic. Dont play to win, play to be helpful to your team.
There's gonna be some toxicity, but there's a very good chance that even with minimal communication back your brain is going to recognize that you are working with other humans to accomplish a goal.
Brains are dumb, trick it into thinking you're out hunting a mastodon with tribe while you're just chilling on the couch and it'll calm down.
Plus videogames are pretty fun. And the kids on there could use good role models, just be a decent human.
I understand why you're making this suggestion and appreciate the sentiment. Unfortunately I don't register online interactions as full social interactions like some other people. It's why I found social media platforms based on real world identities obtuse and vapid. I really need a place I can goto that doesn't cost money, people know who I am, those people are happy I'm around, I'm happy they're around, and I'm comfortable there. Unfortunately what I described is "a place I belong to" and I'm not going to get that in America.
Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives
When people have more expendable income again they would go out more and organically interact with others.
Unfortunately we have allowed wealth inequality to spiral out of control.
I was one of the first generations that had smartphones and social networks and accessible games (1996), and I spent most of my childhood just sitting home playing games. I was thankfully still forced to do sports, so I at least don't look like the negative nerd stereotype, but while I'm glad for it, I don't remember almost anything from them and simply suffered through so I can get back to a PC.
It has fucked up my life pretty considerably, and I've spent the last few years trying to unfuck it and do something else. But learning how to spend time in your late 20s, when literally the only thing you've ever done is sit at a computer is super hard, and everything feels like a boring waste of time, and I keep cycling between giving up and just continuing to ignore the problem, especially when something happens and I'm stressed, or alcohol that allows me to at least somehow function outside at events. Which I've done kind of succesfully, DJing and organizing events for local subculture, but I simply can't do that sober no matter how I try.
And that's after I spent almost a decade of trying hard to change it, including professional help, and my deep hatred for social networks and enshittification keeps me from at least wasting time on FB/IG/Twitter or other timesink sites, and I don't watch movies or tv shows.
I can't imagine what it must be for people used to just watch shows all day, while also being content with using TikTok and IG, and while I started playing at ~4 y.o on Dreamcast, got a phone during elementary school and Facebook during highschool, you now get toddlers playing on tablets or watching YT.
And now, we add AI to the mix, where you don't even have to formulate your sentences properly to be able to message someone, or invest effort into reading more difficult or longer texts, since you can just summ it or get an AI to write it. Generation that grows up with this as something normalized will be fucked up beyond recognition.
Over the past few months, I’ve spoken with psychologists, political scientists, sociologists, and technologists about America’s anti-social streak. Although the particulars of these conversations differed, a theme emerged: The individual preference for solitude, scaled up across society and exercised repeatedly over time, is rewiring America’s civic and psychic identity. And the consequences are far-reaching—for our happiness, our communities, our politics, and even our understanding of reality.
I've become more and more isolated as I've gotten older. I'm in my early 40s now and I sometimes go several days in a row without interacting face-to-face with anyone other than my wife. I text with my brother pretty much every day, but he lives 1,000 miles away.
I have plenty of opportunities to be around more people, but I rarely want to. That's not to say that I wouldn't like to interact with people more, it's that I don't want to interact with just anyone. I want to spend time with people I want to spend time with, there just aren't very many of those people around me, and if my only options are: spend time with people I don't enjoy spending time with or be by myself, I'll choose to be by myself. If there were a third option, to spend time with people I like spending time with, I would take it because that would be my preferred option.
Only way to find those people is to get out and interact though
Okay, so, problematic use of language here.
"Antisocial" is actually a very real mental disorder diagnosis categorized under violent disorders and lack of empathy. It doesn't mean "reclusive" it means "talking to them evokes strong emotions previously felt only by cats and canibal-morph-salamanders".
The USA as a whole haven't started murdering each other for speaking, yet.
As an introvert, I welcome these changes if they lead to a more introvert-friendly society.
Some level of socializing is important though; you end up with a not-very-functional society without it
Yup, my sister is a teacher and she is increasingly worried about the lack of social skills of younger generations, and she teaches teenagers.
It's sad but I've been seeing this happen starting 10-12 years ago.
The writing's been on the wall for decades now. The internet accelerated things, but this really and truly started with the rise of the automobile and the white flight to the suburbs, and the commercialization of public life was the death by a thousand cuts that lead to this moment.
Hit up your local, or even not local libraries! We're chill, accepting and we have more than just books. There's a whole library of things you can borrow: movies, games, puzzles, game systems, metal detectors, power tools etc. I'm in a small town and even we have free events all the time, for all ages. We're also really open to suggestions, so if you don't see something you like, just ask!
I really like libraries that lend tools.
I think you should stock up on pitchforks and torches.
The best kind of play is physical, outdoors, with other kids, and unsupervised, allowing children to press the limits of their abilities while figuring out how to manage conflict and tolerate pain.
Hot take
Can someone please make an app for meeting people that doesn't ban me or require me to enter all my personal data?
I feel like its so hard to meet people these days, since all the apps have turned into data harvest and selling machines :(
I thought we were here, I thought this was the place?
On a related note, I offer to any who wish it my time and attention via this anonymous discord server LINK. I would have used Matrix but it's still missing a couple features.
I combat this by hosting bi weekly game nights and bi weekly movie nights for my friends and I. It really is fucked up they got rid of all the public space to stop minorities from accessing it. I hate this society.