Tag Archives: 20m0459

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If Robert Putnam felt the first raindrops of an antisocial revolution in America, the downpour is fully here, and we’re all getting washed away in the flood. From 2003 to 2022, American men reduced their average hours of face-to-face socializing by about 30 percent. For unmarried Americans, the decline was even bigger—more than 35 percent. For teenagers, it was more than 45 percent. Boys and girls ages 15 to 19 reduced their weekly social hangouts by more than three hours a week. In short, there is no statistical record of any other period in U.S. history when people have spent more time on their own.
~ Derek Thompson via The Atlantic

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If Boomer parents are pulling on one end of the rope in a game of tug-of-war, Millennial and Gen Z kids may be yanking on the other. Gen Xers’ delay in childbearing means that many may find themselves either struggling with infertility or raising little kids in their 40s. Generation X is downwardly mobile as costs are rising, but we’re working hard to give our children advantages that we didn’t have.
~ Ada Calhoun via The Atlantic

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Generation X is small, a great baby bust, and we are now caring for the far larger generations that tower over us on either side—often while working full-time. Since the 1980s, middle-aged adults have been called the “sandwich generation,” wedged between caring for their parents and raising their kids. But this metaphor feels too innocuous for what Gen X is going through. I find myself drawn to a less friendly analogy: not that of fresh Wonder Bread slices gently squishing us, but that of panini grills pressing us flat.
~ Ada Calhoun via The Atlantic

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