In its cover of February 2025 for the AtlanticJournalist Derek Thompson called our current era “The Anti-Social Century”.
He is flawed. According to our recent researchThe United States becomes a nation of domestic mugs.
Using data from American time testingWe studied how people within the US hung out before, during and after Pandemia.
Pandemia Covid-19 encouraged more Americans to remain at home. But this trend didn’t start or ended with a pandemic. We found that the Americans had already spent increasingly more time at home, and fewer and fewer involved in classes away from home reaching as much as a minimum of 2003.
And for those who thought that the tip of the blockades and the spread of vaccines led to the revival of events, playing sports and eating, you shall be flawed. It seems that Pandemia mostly accelerated continuous trends.
All this has serious implications for traffic, public transport, real estate, jobs, social meetings and mental health.
Life inside
The trend of staying at home is not recent.
During the 20 years preceding Pandemia, there was a everlasting decrease in activities outside the house.
Compared to 2003, the Americans spent almost half-hour less at school outside the house and eight minutes a day. There are many reasons for this modification, but there are probably the perpetrators, regardless of whether or not they are smartphones, streaming services or social media. You can check with a friend as a substitute of meeting them for coffee; Order groceries via the applying as a substitute of venting to the supermarket; And send a stream movie as a substitute of seeing it within the theater.
Of course, through the pandemic there was a sharp decrease in activities outside the house, which dramatically accelerated many of these trends at home.
In addition to travel, the time spent at school outside the house fell by on average by over an hour a day, from 332 minutes in 2019 to 271 minutes in 2021. The journey, excluding air travels, fell from 69 to 54 minutes a day at the identical time.
But even after releasing the pandemic blockade, actions outside the house and traveling through 2023. They remained significantly depressed, far below the degrees of 2019. Dramatic growth At distant work, online shopping, time spent on digital entertainment, equivalent to streaming and games, and even sleeping time.
The time spent outside the home affected the pandemic, but only barely. There was almost no regaining actions outside the house in 2022 to 2023, which implies that 2023 actions outside the house and travel were still far below the extent of 2019. In general, Americans spend almost 1.5 hours less outside their homes in 2023 than in 2003.
While the hours of work from home in 2022 were lower than half of what they were in 2021, they’re still about five times greater than Pandemic. Despite this, only about a quarter of the general reduction in travel time results from a smaller number of access. The rest reflects other types of travel for such activities as shopping and social.
Wave effects
This change had the implications.
With American expenses More time worksplaying and shopping at home, demand for office and retail surface He fell. While the essential employers of employees could spend more time within the office, research suggests that working at home within the USA was stable between the start of 2023 and firstly of 2025. About 25% of paid work days. As a result, the excess of office space may require a change in purpose as an apartment and other applications.
Work and game at home has benefits equivalent to avoiding stress and travel expenses. But that is too Increased demand To get an extra space in apartments and houses, because people spend more time under their very own roof. Yes The journey was modified On a traditional morning – and particularly within the afternoon – peak periods, more evenly distributing traffic Losses of transit riders. Meanwhile more Package and food supply drivers compete with parked cars and bus and bicycle lanes to the curb.
Perhaps, most significantly, spending less time on the planet has sobering implications for Americans far beyond real estate and transport systems.
The research we currently conduct suggest that more time spent at home was in a position to spend more time spent alone. Suffice to say that it makes loneliness result from No significant connectionsA more common event. Loneliness and social insulation are related to Increased risk of early mortality.
Because down it appears to be a recent norm, we expect that the more vital thing is that call -makers and on a regular basis people find ways to cultivate contacts and communities within the shrinking time spent outside the house.
