How tech has fueled an anti-social era

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January 28th, 2025 // Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up to receive your own copy here. ([link removed] )

How to shape the technology that shapes us

Our digital habits are reshaping us in profound ways. To understand its role in our lives and its impact on society, it can be helpful to take a broader sociological perspective.

How does it shape our relationships, influence our behaviors, and even redefine our communities?

Derek Thompson ([link removed] ) of The Atlantic addresses these questions in his recent article, “The Anti-Social Century ([link removed] ) .”

In this week’s newsletter, we use that article as a launching point to explore the relationship between technology and isolation, and what we can do to shape the technology that is shaping us.

// The first decade of withdrawal

The 20th century was a social century. For many decades, U.S. church membership was high ([link removed] .) . Labor union participation spiked ([link removed] .) after World War II. There was a post-war baby boom, and the U.S. invested in libraries ([link removed] ) as a form of social infrastructure.

But things changed in the 1970s as the structures and institutions that brought people together began to lose their power. Why? In his book Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam cited two technologies that had by then become ubiquitous: the automobile and the television. Cars enabled the growth of suburbs and a more private, nuclear-family-oriented life. The television enticed people to spend their leisure time not in libraries but consuming shows.

As Thompson noted in his article in The Atlantic, from 1965 to 1995, the typical adult gained six hours a week in leisure time, which they spent nearly all of in front of their television.

// From remote work to remote life

Fast forward to 2020, and we may have entered a second decade of withdrawal. In 2022, after the peak of the COVID pandemic was over and people had returned to work and restaurants, adults still spent an additional 99 minutes at home on any given day compared with 2003, according to Princeton University sociologist Patrick Sharkey ([link removed] ) , who published a journal article in 2024 ([link removed] ) on the findings.

Remote work has become a “remote life,” where we don’t just work at home, but also eat, shop, be entertained, and even worship. This trend is concerning, as Liana Sayer ([link removed] ) , a sociologist at the University of Maryland, found that “well-being is higher among adults who spend larger shares of leisure with others.”

All of this is enabled by technology that has made it easier than ever to stay plugged in while being apart. The economy has reoriented around tech-powered convenience—from the rise of Zoom to e-commerce shopping to food delivery apps.

// The missing relational layers of a remote life

“Home-based, phone-based culture has arguably solidified our closest and most distant connections, the inner ring of family and best friends (bound by blood and intimacy) and the outer ring of the tribe (linked by shared affinities),” Thompson wrote in The Atlantic.

What’s missing, according to Marc J. Dunkelman ([link removed] ) , a research fellow at Brown University, is that we’re not investing in the middle ring of “familiar but not intimate” relationships with the people who live in physical proximity to us.

Dunkelman told Thompson that spending time with this middle ring of acquaintances is the key to social cohesion because it teaches us tolerance. We are thrust into interactions with people with whom we might disagree but still must coexist as part of “a village.”

“The village is our best arena for practicing productive disagreement and compromise—in other words, democracy,” Thompson wrote. Our aloneness might be atrophying our collective muscle of democracy.

Today, people in each party think more unfavorably ([link removed] ) of people in the other party than they did 20 years ago. In a 2021 poll by Generation Lab/Axios ([link removed] ) , nearly one-third of college-age Republicans said they wouldn’t even go on a date with a Democrat, and more than two-thirds of college-age Democratic students wouldn’t go on a date with a Republican.

// Artificial connections

In the age of AI, technology is creating human-like experiences in sometimes misleading ways. The conversational, human-like chatbots we use to interact with today’s AI algorithms can create the illusion of talking to a person. Character.ai ([link removed] ) , a company that creates AI companions (one of which was intimately connected to a teen who committed suicide last year ([link removed] ?) ), has millions of monthly active users who spend an average of 93 minutes per day ([link removed] ) chatting with their AI companion.

It might be strange to imagine having a romantic AI companion, but all of our texting and chatting in the privacy of our homes has predisposed us to similar experiences from AI companions.

// Still the early days of the internet

It’s worth remembering that today's dominant technologies are still new. Social media isn’t even one generation old. The mass adoption of AI tools is less than three years old. We are still in the very early days of the internet.

While large tech companies have built platforms that dominate our digital lives, a growing movement is emerging to create a new, better, more connected internet.

One small example is a business called Tin Can ([link removed] ) , which is a WiFi-enabled landline for kids. No apps, no screens, and only approved numbers get through. Kids talking to kids on a phone with a cord. It’s one example of how families and friend groups bypass the incumbent technology altogether for a new (or old) form of human connection.

Another is Front Porch Forum ([link removed] ) , a social network of neighbors in Vermont and New York. Its founder and CEO Michael Wood-Lewis told The Washington Post ([link removed] ) last year that the company “ultimately exists to stimulate real-world interactions among neighbors.” Research from New_ Public ([link removed] ) , a Project Liberty Alliance member, found that Front Porch Forum is one of the few online spaces ([link removed] ) in America that leaves its users feeling more informed, more civically engaged, and more connected to their neighbors.

A third is Cortico ([link removed] ) , a platform co-created by Deb Roy ([link removed] ) , an advisor to Project Liberty’s DSNP. Cortico’s conversation platform ([link removed] ) empowers individuals and communities to facilitate, analyze, and share small group conversations and create more diverse and representative community listening, leading to greater trust and transparency.

There’s a quote by the essayist William Gibson that says, “The future is here. It’s just not evenly distributed.” This observation rings true for the internet today. It is still evolving, with its ultimate shape determined by the choices we make now. It would be a failure of imagination to assume the internet’s status quo is fixed or inevitable.

If there is a meta-takeaway, it is that humans have always found a way to reconnect and come back together. After a season of aloneness, history shows that our greatest breakthroughs are born from profound moments of unity.

Other notable headlines

// 🤔 An article in WIRED ([link removed] ) highlighted research with a surprising finding: the less people know about AI, the more they like it and are open to using it.

// 🤖 According to an article in The Wall Street Journal ([link removed] ) , Silicon Valley is raving about DeepSeek, a made-in-China AI model that’s proven to be impressive, despite being made with less-advanced chips.

// 🌉 An article in Noema Magazine ([link removed] ) explored how disinformation deforms democracy and the need to build public bridges across our social media silos.

// 🎸 Paul McCartney called on the UK government to protect artists from AI, according to an article in TechCrunch ([link removed] ) .

// 🇨🇳 According to an article in Rest of World ([link removed] ) , the secret sauce of Chinese social media apps is addictive algorithms + social networking + shopping + entertainment.

// 📱 There is the internet we have. And then there is the one we want. An article in The Atlantic ([link removed] ) explored what’s beyond doom-scrolling.

Partner news & opportunities

// Virtual webinar on AI for health equity

Today, January 28th at 4pm ET | Virtual

Join the Cyber Policy Center ([link removed] ) for a seminar led by Dr. Lee Sanders ([link removed] ) . Based on 30 years of conducting clinical research, teaching human-centered design, and consulting for Silicon Valley startups, Dr. Sanders will share examples of opportunities to leverage AI that will advance health equity. Register here ([link removed] ) and view previous sessions on their YouTube channel ([link removed] ) .

// Supporting Parents in the Digital Age

The Institute of Digital Media and Child Development ([link removed] ) has released the open-access "Handbook of Children & Screens ([link removed] ) ." This resource offers practical tips for managing digital parenting while addressing the mental health challenges faced by parents.

// Livestream of “Is AI progress slowing down?”

January 30th at 1pm ET | Virtual

All Tech Is Human ([link removed] ) is hosting a conversation with Arvind Narayanan ([link removed] ) , professor of computer science at Princeton University and the director of the Center for Information Technology Policy. He is a co-author of the book “AI Snake Oil” and a newsletter ([link removed] ) of the same name. Register here ([link removed] ) .

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/ Project Liberty builds solutions that help people take back control of their lives in the digital age by reclaiming a voice, choice, and stake in a better internet.

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