Anti-Social Age

Notes on Derek Thompson's Essay for The Atlantic

But convenience can be a curse. Our habits are creating what Atalay has called a “century of solitude.” This is the anti-social century.

Derek Thompson • The Anti-Social Century

The tyranny of convenience emerges again.

From 1985 to 1994, active involvement in community organizations fell by nearly half. The decline was astonishingly broad, affecting just about every social activity and every demographic group that Putnam tracked.

Derek Thompson • The Anti-Social Century

The MTV generation + videogames

In the 1960s, Irwin Altman, a psychologist at the Naval Medical Research Institute, in Bethesda, Maryland, co-developed a friendship formula characterized by increasing intimacy.

Derek Thompson • The Anti-Social Century

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

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to poor neighborhoods in big cities, and the community leaders tell me the real crisis for poor teenagers is that there’s just not much for them to do anymore, and nowhere to go,” Klinenberg told me. “I’d like to see the government build social infrastructure for teenagers with the creativity and generosit... See more

Derek Thompson • The Anti-Social Century

Epley sees the exponential growth of AI companions as a real possibility. “You can set them up to never criticize you, never cheat on you, never have a bad day and insult you, and to always be interested in you.” Unlike the most patient spouses, they could tell us that we’re always right. Unlike the world’s best friend, they could instantly respond... See more

Derek Thompson • The Anti-Social Century

Frictionless everything is another manifestation of the tyranny of convenience.

Convenience becomes more appealing as the bigger stuff in life (career, health, etc) become harder. That’s why it is an inverted function…the more difficult the big things are, the more appealing convenience and frictionless in everything else becomes.

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

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

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.”