How The Social Atrophy Epidemic Affects You?

Causes, Effects, And What You Can Do To Rebuild Your Social Muscles

Welcome back to another week of Life Intelligence.

Here's a recap of what I wrote about in August.

• Trading Freedom For Stuff And Rights for False Supremacy.
  This was part of the Things We Normalize That Should Terrify Us Series. I've been throwing some political posts here and there.

• Calming the Emotional Chaos of Major Life Changes
  Actual tools you can use. I made the 7-Day Emotion Stabilizer Plan (and the Three Instant Grounding Resets) FREE to paid subscribers in The Vault.
  Free subscribers can download the PDF of the plan for $5. More tools coming soon. I have also updated The Vault to include all the 30-Day Journaling Challenge prompts, in case you want to revisit them.

• Maintaining and Recalibrating Relationships During Life Transitions
  How to nurture what fits, let go of what doesn't, and open new circles of belonging. This is part of the Life Transition Series.

• Should We Lose Faith In Humanity?
  Myths, Science, And Your Well-Being. This is a post that covers psychopathy, altruism, and a lot more, backed by science.

• The Psychology Of Power Imbalances
  What Happens to Us When Power Is Gained, Lost, or Abused. This is another well-researched and science-heavy post that should explain what we are seeing in the world today.

🙏 I am grateful to the folks who filled out my survey, as I try to stay in step with my readers and focus on what matters to you. If you have not yet, please GO TO THE SURVEY and check some boxes. It's fast and easy, and it will help me write about what you care about. 🙏

Here's what is coming in September.

• Today, I discuss Social Atrophy and what you can do to rebuild your social skills. I have a 4-week Social Fitness Plan, a science-backed guide, and a workbook designed to help you reverse social atrophy and feel connected again.
  
  🙏 It's FREE for paid subscribers. You will find the link at the end.

  💵 Free subscribers can download it HERE for $5.
  

• Next week's post is on Self-Concept/Identity Mapping. Then a post about Letting Go Or Giving Up, and another one about Analysis Paralysis – what causes it and how to overcome it so you can make good decisions.

• There will be more downloadable tools you can use (free for my paid subscribers).

• And finally, something I've been wanting to do for a long time – a FREE Integration Lab! On Zoom! With my paid subscribers.

  
  We can chat about things that made an impression on you, things you've incorporated in your life, questions you may want me to answer, etc. A hangout! By then, I'll probably be in Europe already. So, you get to go with me. In a way… I'll announce the date for the Integration Lab in a couple of weeks.

If you are a free subscriber and wondering if you should spring $8/mo or $80/year for Life Intelligence, I hope to win you over.

Which one are you 😁???

Remember, paid subscribers can email me directly. They have access to the tools in The Vault and all archived essays. Also, they get the voice-overs of my posts, so they can listen to me while stuck in traffic or walking the dog.

Onward to today's topic.

The Cost Of Remote Work

Before the COVID Pandemic, people complained that they didn't have enough time to be home. Then, working from home became the norm. People traded business suits for pajama bottoms and spent their lunch breaks walking the dog. Now, many are asked to go back to the office as hybrid employees or full-time and actually look in the faces of their team mates, have small talk around the water cooler, and practice their soft social skills like effective communication, conflict resolution, team collaboration, problem solving in a group environment, and not picking their nose at meetings while sipping wine from a coffee cup.

Many, especially young people, totally objected to human contact at the office and flatly refused to return. Others find it impossible to hold any kind of job, not even at a fast-food restaurant, where they had to work with others in person and interface with customers.

An unintended consequence of remote/hybrid work during the pandemic was the draining of the "friendship faucet" at work. When you consider all the people who met and bonded at work, and all whose primary social circle consisted of their coworkers, the loss of this work-related social opportunity becomes devastatingly obvious for many.

Five years post-pandemic, we are still homebound. According to the 2024 American Time Use Study, "On an average day, individuals spent 35 minutes socializing and communicating…" down from 43 minutes a decade earlier (2014). That's a 19% drop in social time. In 2014, roughly 38% of people engaged in socializing on any given day, compared to 30% in 2024.

Compare these statistics to mid-20th-century social life in America, characterized by far more frequent and richer in-person social interactions. Think neighborhood visits, clubs, churches, civic groups, and work-related gatherings. Where have the social hours after work, bowling leagues, and bridge nights gone? Bingo is for the Boomers, but what about the Gen Zs?

Insights from Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" book, echoed by historians like Alexis de Tocqueville, describe a vibrant culture of sociability in mid-century America, considered the high-water mark for communal life. But we’ve seen a gradual decline since the 1970s.

Meanwhile, coffee shops, clubs, faith communities, and other low-friction gathering spots (third places) have thinned or changed function over time. Very few people go to bars to meet people anymore. Most go to a bar to have a drink, listen to a live band, watch sports, but not necessarily to connect with others. Few linger in the coffee shops the way they did years ago.

One consistent observation I made while traveling through Bulgaria and Greece is how people can kill hours shooting the breeze, nursing a cup of coffee on any day of the week! I should say, these are mostly people my age and older. The younger generations there are almost as bad as Americans.

Sadly.

The Phones Ate The Margins