Americans are becoming so isolated from each other that I worry that the ties that bind the fabric of society might be coming apart!
In 2024, on any given weekend or holiday, an average of only 4% of Americans attended or hosted a social event.
So reports Moira Gleason in National Review. From 2003 to 2024, the amount of time Americans engage in face-to-face socialization with another human being has declined by almost 25%.
For teenagers and young adults, the decline in face-to-face time was even worse: 40%. Two-thirds of Americans under 30 report that they have fewer than five close friends. And 67% of Generation Z says they are lonely.
“Dating, sex, and marriage,” says Gleason, “are at an all-time low.”
The reasons are pretty obvious. The fallout from the forced isolation of the COVID shutdowns. Sex drives channeled into pornography rather than the pursuit of actual relationships. Social media replacing face-to-face interactions. And now “AI companions.”
On that subject, writes Neil Sahota in Forbes,
AI relationships provide a level of convenience and control that is not always possible in human interactions. These digital companions are available 24×7, don’t have their own emotional baggage, and can be switched off at the user’s convenience.
Right. So AI companions–as well as porn, social media, and our other virtual relationships–not only substitute for human interaction, they disable us from having actual relationships with human beings. This is because real people are not always convenient and we cannot always control them. They come with their own emotional baggage and cannot be switched off at the user’s convenience.
Someone who is accustomed only to artificial digital relationships will have a hard time adjusting to the needs of a separate person. In trying to pursue a romantic relationship, a pornified male and a constantly AI-emotionally-supported female will likely just get mad at each other and retreat back into their digital cocoons. Unless, of course, they re-orient themselves to reality.
So what can be done? Gleason seconds the advice of an Atlantic writer on the subject: Throw more parties.
But nothing is lonelier than attending a party where you don’t know anyone. And not knowing anyone is the primal problem that needs addressing. The Atlantic writer lauds the benefits of getting “all your friends together in one place”– “your work friends and your childhood friends and the people you’ve chatted amiably with at school drop-off”–but if you have so many friends you probably are not all that lonely.
There is a point here, though. We need to provide more occasions for social interactions, while structuring them so that people overcome their isolation from each other.
This strikes me as a great opportunity for the church. Research demonstrates even to secularists that, among other benefits, church-goers experience less loneliness. Though it is certainly possible to be lonely in church too, the Christian faith and Christian community offer some specific solutions.
In corporate worship, we join together with others and are united in Christ. In Bible studies we have a forum for talking with others and sharing our problems and struggles. In service projects we work side by side with others in a common action of loving our neighbors. Youth groups and young adult groups can help the participants get to know each other. That includes young men and women getting to know each other.
Though Gleason is all for more parties, she goes on to discuss the benefits in her experience of dinner parties. That is, of people getting to know each other when they have a meal together.
In church that happens all the time, supremely, in the communion that happens between each member and with Christ, the head of the church, in His supper. But ordinary church dinners, from congregational potlucks to small group get-togethers, can be strong tonics against feelings of isolation.
Sometimes, these can be intentionally structured towards that end. Our congregation has “trigon dinners,” in which people sign up to take part in a series of dinners involving three individuals or families. An organizer sets up who is in each of the groups, with one member of each “trigon” hosting and everyone else bringing something. The three contact each other to work out details, then meet at the host’s home for the meal, plus a devotion, plus conversation. This whole process is repeated for a total of three times, so that everyone breaks bread with six other members or families from the congregation. Then you do it again the next year, to get to know six more. This has been ideal for integrating new members–such as we were last year–into the church community.
Do you have any other good ideas, either from your church or from your own experience, about how to get people interacting with each other again?
Photo: Having Lunch Together by Julia M Cameron: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-family-having-lunch-together-8841415/, via Pexels, CC0.
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