Fewer friends, relationships on the decline, delayed adulthood, trust at an all-time low, and many diseases of despair. The prognosis is not great.
In 2000, political scientist Robert Putnam published his book Bowling Alone to much acclaim and was first comprehensive look at the decline of social activities in the United States. Now, however, all those same trends have fallen off a cliff. This particular piece looks at sociability trends across various metrics—friendships, relationships, life milestones, trust, and so on—and gives a bird's eye view of the social state of things in 2022.
A piece that I wrote that really picked up on HackerNews recently with over 300+ comments. Some excellent comments there, I suggest reading it over.
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It can be, but I don't see how that's a relevant... whatever it is. There are an endless amount of things that could be. I don't understand the point you are making. It seems like you are presupposing a framework of economic rationality and I don't understand why or what you think necessitates it. It's not about deducing what others think and seeing if it can or can not fit within some predefined rubric of 'rationality'.
It's like you are extrapolating into a wider context to get away from a question that isn't about anything other than yourself.
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