The Anti-Social Century

Thompson argues that rising solitude—not simply self-reported loneliness—is a defining social fact. Drawing on the American Time Use Survey and reporting across restaurants, entertainment, technology, and public space, he notes that in-person socializing fell more than 20 percent from 2003 to 2023 and by more than 35 percent among unmarried men and people under 25.

The essay also supplies its own corrective: loneliness measures are mixed and in some surveys improved after the pandemic even while alone time rose. Its deeper claim is institutional and behavioral—that home delivery, screens, private space, weakened associations, and underfunded social infrastructure can produce a comfortable retreat whose cumulative effects include less practice with compromise and shared reality.