CULTIVATING A 'THIRD LIFE'

He was right to worry. These days, the role of coffee shops and bars, libraries and community centers, civic clubs and houses of worship, has faded as the creep of work and domestic obligation in American life has become all but inescapable. According to the 2021 Census Bureau's Time Use Survey, Americans were already spending significantly less time with friends before the pandemic rearranged life entirely. Our collective isolation has only metastasized since then. In 2024, a staggering 17% of Americans claimed to have zero friends, up from 1% in 1990 when Oldenburg was first urging caution.

- BY ADAM CHANDLER

This social and civic decay goes well beyond what the data conveys. Americans are working longer hours than those in most of our peer nations, with less money and less stability to show for it. For many people, the cost of living has increasingly turned free time into a luxury. And, in the place of in-person socialization, we've bent our necks toward our screens, which feed us an endless stream of perfect corgi videos, have allowed work to seep into our off-hours, and facilitated an unprecedented loneliness crisis among younger Americans.