Derek Thompson

A lot of people are familiar with Robert Putnam and his thesis of bowling alone, but what really startled me is that there was a tremendous acceleration of alone time in the 21st century.

Absolutely. Technology is at the heart of it. There's many things we can point to that changed in the 1960s and 1970s. But I'm very persuaded that if you want to understand the marrow of this issue, you should be looking at the most important technologies of the 20th century. which are the car and the television. And the automobile, I would say, privatized people's lives.

Absolutely. Technology is at the heart of it. There's many things we can point to that changed in the 1960s and 1970s. But I'm very persuaded that if you want to understand the marrow of this issue, you should be looking at the most important technologies of the 20th century. which are the car and the television. And the automobile, I would say, privatized people's lives.

Absolutely. Technology is at the heart of it. There's many things we can point to that changed in the 1960s and 1970s. But I'm very persuaded that if you want to understand the marrow of this issue, you should be looking at the most important technologies of the 20th century. which are the car and the television. And the automobile, I would say, privatized people's lives.

It allowed us to move into the suburbs, to move away from density, which is to say other people, spend more time alone in our backyards and alone in our houses. But then along in the 1950s, 1960s came another technology that really fit right with the automobile, and that's the television. And if the car privatized our lives, I think the television privatized our leisure.

It allowed us to move into the suburbs, to move away from density, which is to say other people, spend more time alone in our backyards and alone in our houses. But then along in the 1950s, 1960s came another technology that really fit right with the automobile, and that's the television. And if the car privatized our lives, I think the television privatized our leisure.

It allowed us to move into the suburbs, to move away from density, which is to say other people, spend more time alone in our backyards and alone in our houses. But then along in the 1950s, 1960s came another technology that really fit right with the automobile, and that's the television. And if the car privatized our lives, I think the television privatized our leisure.

And when you dig into the numbers, it is extraordinary just how much TV changed what it meant to be alive in the last 50 years of the 1900s. There is federal data suggesting that between 1960 and the 1990s, the average American added about six hours of leisure time to every week. That's an extra 300 hours of leisure time every year.

And when you dig into the numbers, it is extraordinary just how much TV changed what it meant to be alive in the last 50 years of the 1900s. There is federal data suggesting that between 1960 and the 1990s, the average American added about six hours of leisure time to every week. That's an extra 300 hours of leisure time every year.

And when you dig into the numbers, it is extraordinary just how much TV changed what it meant to be alive in the last 50 years of the 1900s. There is federal data suggesting that between 1960 and the 1990s, the average American added about six hours of leisure time to every week. That's an extra 300 hours of leisure time every year.

And think about like if you were waking up on January 1st and someone said, how do you want to spend an extra 300 hours of leisure that I'm giving you this year? Do you want to learn how to play an instrument or learn a new language or read all the books you wanted to read? We didn't do any of that. We basically spent all that time watching more television.

And think about like if you were waking up on January 1st and someone said, how do you want to spend an extra 300 hours of leisure that I'm giving you this year? Do you want to learn how to play an instrument or learn a new language or read all the books you wanted to read? We didn't do any of that. We basically spent all that time watching more television.

And think about like if you were waking up on January 1st and someone said, how do you want to spend an extra 300 hours of leisure that I'm giving you this year? Do you want to learn how to play an instrument or learn a new language or read all the books you wanted to read? We didn't do any of that. We basically spent all that time watching more television.

So coming up to the age of the smartphone, even before you get to that infamous device, you had, I think, the automobile and the television set sort of setting the ground for what has been an enormous decline in face-to-face socializing.

So coming up to the age of the smartphone, even before you get to that infamous device, you had, I think, the automobile and the television set sort of setting the ground for what has been an enormous decline in face-to-face socializing.

So coming up to the age of the smartphone, even before you get to that infamous device, you had, I think, the automobile and the television set sort of setting the ground for what has been an enormous decline in face-to-face socializing.

To me, this is the most important conceptual scoop of the essay. As you mentioned in your open, everyone wants to talk about loneliness these days. Vivek Murthy says that loneliness is an epidemic. You have ministers of loneliness being granted new positions in places like the UK and Japan. Everyone wants to talk about loneliness.

To me, this is the most important conceptual scoop of the essay. As you mentioned in your open, everyone wants to talk about loneliness these days. Vivek Murthy says that loneliness is an epidemic. You have ministers of loneliness being granted new positions in places like the UK and Japan. Everyone wants to talk about loneliness.

To me, this is the most important conceptual scoop of the essay. As you mentioned in your open, everyone wants to talk about loneliness these days. Vivek Murthy says that loneliness is an epidemic. You have ministers of loneliness being granted new positions in places like the UK and Japan. Everyone wants to talk about loneliness.

But among the many people that I spoke to for this article, I talked to the NYU sociologist Eric Kleinberg, who passed along a relatively familiar within sociology definition of loneliness. Loneliness, he said, is the gap between felt social connection and desired social connection. Loneliness is a healthy thing to feel in the right doses. It's what gets us off the couch to spend time with people.