Anti-Social Age
Notes on Derek Thompson's Essay for The Atlantic
Anti-Social Age
If Carr is right, modern technology’s always-open window to the outside world makes recharging much harder, leaving many people chronically depleted, a walking battery that is always stuck in the red zone. In a healthy world, people who spend lots of time alone would feel that ancient biological cue: I’m alone and sad; I should make some plans . Bu... See more
Derek Thompson • The Anti-Social Century
This is the money quote
The real problem here, the nature of America’s social crisis, is that most Americans don’t seem to be reacting to the biological cue to spend more time with other people.
Derek Thompson • The Anti-Social Century
The pain of loneliness is not leading to a socialization response
But one source of Trump’s success may be that he is an avatar of the all-tribe, no-village style of performative confrontation. He stokes out-group animosity, and speaks to voters who are furiously intolerant of political difference.
Derek Thompson • The Anti-Social Century
Teen anxiety and depression are at near-record highs: The latest government survey of high schoolers, conducted in 2023, found that more than half of teen girls said they felt “persistently sad or hopeless.”
Derek Thompson • The Anti-Social Century
For many socially isolated men in particular, for whom reality consists primarily of glowing screens in empty rooms, a vote for destruction is a politics of last resort—a way to leave one’s mark on a world where collective progress, or collective support of any kind, feels impossible.
Derek Thompson • The Anti-Social Century
In 2022—notably, after the pandemic had abated—adults spent an additional 99 minutes at home on any given day compared with 2003.
Derek Thompson • The Anti-Social Century
We are in the home even more
But some participants seemed drawn to any conspiracy theory so long as it was intended to destroy the established order. Members of this cohort commonly harbored racial or economic grievances. Perhaps more important, Petersen said, they tended to feel socially isolated. These aggravated loners agreed with many dark pronouncements, such as “I need c... See more
Derek Thompson • The Anti-Social Century
Anti-establishment emergence
According to data gathered by the online reservations platform OpenTable, solo dining has increased by 29 percent in just the past two years. The No. 1 reason is the need for more “me time.”
Derek Thompson • The Anti-Social Century
Solo dining from outlier to trend
In entertainment, as in dining, modernity has transformed a ritual of togetherness into an experience of homebound reclusion and even solitude.
Derek Thompson • The Anti-Social Century
Restaurants go the way of Hollywood