America is becoming a nation of homebodies

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/08/03/americans-homebodies-isolation/

by nkzednan • 12 months ago

4 11 12 months ago

d00mB0t• 12 months ago

Have you been outside lately? Everyone is nuts lol.

WarOnPrivacy5• 12 months ago

Here where an 85° dewpoint is common and the 13th month of summer is the worst, heatstroke is a risk - day and night. Some unexpected outdoor behavior is expected.

Fade_Dance2• 12 months ago

The other day I was strolling through a sketchy and recently abandoned apartment complex on the way to a city park, with seemingly nobody around, and a scraggly guy suddenly was booking it at full sprint down the sidewalk right at me with a drill or nail-gun or something in his hands. I'm like "well, this guy is either completely insane and running from hallucinated demons, and perhaps I look like one to him, or he's on the run from a criminal offense or otherwise dangerous encounter after breaking in to the buildings..."

One of the big reasons is that bars are dead. They used to suck a lot of time out of the regular working populace, and the regulars at bars are almost exclusively boomers (or older), and maybe a few alcoholics. I go to a lot of local bars and it's almost always the same story from the bartenders about traffic over the past 10 years. Even the cheap ones that aren't flagrantly overpriced (and many/most are now) have very little new traffic.

WarOnPrivacy5• 12 months ago

One of the big reasons is that bars are dead.

I only ever knew one guy who was a regular bar patron. He lost his license for DWI and was hit by a drunk driver while bicycling home.

Our peers all had parties and crashed where we were.

Bars always felt like a TV-Only thing. Like self-cleaning houses. Like making 40k/yr in LA and affording bars and nice housing.

sleepyguy• 12 months ago

http://archive.today/hTdTZ

bhasinanant• 12 months ago

Is it just America though? People are just going out lesser now, ever since Covid.

WarOnPrivacy5• 12 months ago

People are just going out lesser now, ever since Covid.

My socializing was lessening every year before Covid. Now society is in sync with me.

WarOnPrivacy5• 12 months ago

In the period they mention, I've gone from heavy socializing to nearly none.

It's a lot of reasons. My kids are grown. My need for new customers is sharply lower.

I've decoupled my self-esteem from societal expectations. This killed the carrot for a lot of my social behavior - like the need for small talk.

My resistance to things fades with age. Like the ever increasing heat. My tolerance of traffic. My tolerance of crowds - especially when it's enhanced by cluelessness (eg:conversations in choke points).

Plus I live with my 5 adult sons (thanks 4-income economy!) and we get on well.

onecommentman• 12 months ago

A little historical context: Faith Popcorn [yes, that’s her monicker] and the concept of “cocooning”, introduced in the 1980s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocooning_%28behaviour%29

America is becoming a nation of homebodies

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