Many today are deliberately choosing solitude. But group cohesion matters
Christmas and holiday seasons are here, and they usually feature lots of socializing. Dinners, office parties, family get-togethers. People see each other again, rub elbows and exchange greetings. Auld lang syne, and all that. Cheers!
Nobody can match that in-person experience on Facetime or Facebook.
Seasonal gatherings disrupt the trend trend toward less socialization and a visible decrease in community interactions.
Studies have shown less participation these days in clubs, associations, churches, unions and volunteer groups, especially compared with the postwar 1950s and 1960s. Digital media mean there is also less attendance at cinemas and theatres. Food delivery apps mean fewer patrons sitting in restaurants.
“Social capital” is a term that describes the value of personal connections, participation and family ties. It creates the fabric of society. By most measures, that fabric is less sturdy than in recent decades.
Major trend develops
In the mid-1990s, a draft book by Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone, argued that Americans were developing fewer social connections, community and political ties. The book title was derived from Putnam’s finding that, while bowling leagues had shrunk in numbers, more people were choosing to go out bowling alone, playing solo.
Putnam saw evidence here of a decline in social capital. One review summarized it: “Bowling Alone surveyed in detail Americans’ changing behavior over the decades, showing how we had become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and social structures, whether it’s with the PTA, church, clubs, political parties, or bowling leagues”.
A trend toward solo living and a “cocooned” home life has exploded since the 1980s. Markers can include: smaller or non-existent families, fewer memberships in interest groups, and less time spent at public places, as home-delivered food and home entertainment take over.
Isolated individuals might be socially inert or even anti-political. This raised concerns about male alienation.
Young men in Canada are marrying on average at age 30, and online influencers often highlight their monastic self-reliance — working out at the gym and building inner, spiritual strength. Whatever the merits of this sturdy self-reliance, it means fewer neighbourhood ties.
The isolation trend
“The Anti-Social Century”, a lengthy investigation in The Atlantic monthly, set out many ways that group life had declined in the U.S. and the West generally. Author Derek Thompson quoted a Princeton sociologist who calculates that “in 2022 – after the pandemic had abated – adults spent an additional 99 minutes at home on any given day compared with 2003”.
Thompson described three degrees or rings of association: the first, intimate life at home. The second a middle-distance “village” of casual personal relations. And third, interest-driven connections that are more neutral and not in-person; these often involve the internet.
The first ring may actually be reinforced by at-home work, food-delivery services and home screens everywhere, he cvoncluded. But the village of daily, middle-distance relations has suffered.
Covid lockdowns gave momentum to the isolation trend. It became a social duty. One social-media meme showed a lethargic-looking guy sitting alone at his kitchen table with a bottle of wine. A pre-Covid 2019 caption labelled him “Loser, loner, hard case”. In the later image from 2020 he was lauded as a lockdown “Hero, leader, citizen”. Go figure.
Social detachment has medical side-effects. “Poor social connections are associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, infectious diseases, impaired cognitive function, depression, and anxiety”, noted The Lancet, journal of the British Medical Association. Meals on Wheels advertises that “social isolation is as deadly as smoking 15 cigarettes a day”.
Both the United Kingdom and Japan have created “ministries of loneliness” to promote social ties and involvement and avoid alienation. These have gained much attention, but it is unclear how much a government agency can promote social connections, especially when many people may enjoy cocooning.
The Lancet wonders: “But can loneliness be addressed through a public health approach?” Good question. Especially since these social changes are, often enough, free choices.
Counter-arguments and pushback
While the anti-social trend has gained attention, is it really so harmful? Or do critics idealize our past arrangements?
Social isolation is clearly not new. The Beatles in their 1966 hit “Eleanor Rigby” urged us to “think of all the lonely people … where do they all come from?”
By this they perhaps meant younger people but also the poor and older people, often widowed, who are historically the most isolated.
Some positive changes have boosted society in discreet ways. While groups like bowling leagues have declined in the U.S., the term “soccer mom” has become widely known as parents crowd around after-school playing fields. Many new connections develop there.
Funnily enough, I participated in bowling leagues both while working in the U.S. and later among American expats in Europe. They were so keen on members staying, to round out the teams, that I was roped in for a decade of Friday nights.
And I can’t help noticing that some anti-social trends do not match my personal history. In my largeish 1960s Boomer family of five children, I had 12 cousins. Today, my son, an only child, actually has more cousins than I did, 13. So, family life may be resilient; quick takes are often misleading.
In the Townships village where I live there also are loads of social possibilities, from curling-rink dinners to church-basement socials, outdoor concerts, swimming and skating. A giant rummage sale involves dozens here and raises thousands for local causes every year. A volunteer-run library is open most of the week.
Even on the internet — the source of all social ills, if you believe critics —daily chatter sustains connections, from old high-school and college friends to professional colleagues. Facebook is not the devil.
Putnam agrees that social media and the internet have both “introduced previously unthinkable opportunities for social connection—as well as unprecedented levels of alienation and isolation”.
Maybe it’s as simple as raising a glass and toasting old acquaintance “lest they be forgot” – and welcoming new ones. Cheers!
Originally published in the Sherbrooke Record weekend supplement, December 2025.
