Are We Socializing Less Or Socializing Differently

Early one morning this week, my daughter Lauren “FaceTimed” with me. She beamed in from the bathroom where my grandson Max, her toddler son, was chortling as he played with a roll of toilet paper, tearing off little pieces and throwing them in the air like confetti. As Max was delighting in his antics, and we were laughing along with him, Lauren and I chatted away using our own “weird” and ridiculous father-daughter patois. She and I can be dangerously silly when we’re together.

But were we really together?

The American Time Use Survey (“ATUS”) conducted each year by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is the source of much of the data used by researchers and journalists to track what we do with our time. The ATUS is conducted through phone interviews with a demographically diverse group of volunteers who report in minute detail how they spent their time during a single 24-hour period. Time spent on these activities is then recorded according to a series of often hyper-specific codes such as “waiting for non household children” or “cleaning up the kitchen after food preparation.” ¹

If properly reported and coded in the ATUS lexicon, my FaceTime session with Lauren and Max would have been recorded under Telephone Calls. It would not have counted as Socializing/spending time with family. FaceTime is just one example of interactions that don’t fit neatly into the ATUS categorization of life.

Regardless, that FaceTime call was one of the happiest parts of my day.

Don’t go changing to try to please me

The ATUS is in a tough spot with where to place FaceTime and other new technologies. If categories or definitions are changed, then the accuracy of comparisons with prior years suffer. But when technologies and cultural habits change and the ATUS categories remain the same, that, too, entails a loss of accuracy.

It’s possible that new technologies and new ways of spending time, combined with normal human fallibility, can throw the ATUS statistics off.

As well, the ATUS has had an increasingly tough time recruiting participants. The original target was a 70% response rate. The response rate was 58% in 2003 and declined to 32% in 2024. Lower response rates may signal a declining accuracy quality in the survey itself. ²

And what are the social profiles of people who complete a rigorous survey like the ATUS? Is the declining response rate itself a signal of cultural changes?

It makes me wonder if we are exaggerating the “loneliness epidemic” and the decline in socializing.

Television

In the ATUS, the category right after Tobacco and Drug use is Watching TV. There’s not a separate activity code for whether you’re watching alone or with others. ³

My wife Debbie and I watch a lot of television together. Because of the proliferation of streaming, the amount of quality television and movies available to us has exploded over the past few decades. Taking advantage of this is one of our favorite activities.⁴

While we’re watching our shows, Debbie and I talk to each other a lot. We debate whether the show is good enough to watch all the way through. I’m willing to be ruthless in cutting something off; Debbie hates to quit anything before it’s finished.

We have a preference for mysteries and thrillers which means a lot of British and Irish shows since the British and Irish do TV crime so well. As we watch, we’re speculating aloud about how the plot might unfold and who the real villain is.

We often pause the show to ask each other questions like “Is that guy with the beard the policeman or the creepy archeologist?” or “Why can’t they make it easier on us by giving one guy a mustache and the other a beard?”

One of our favorite TV games is to spot an actor who appeared in a different show, the more obscure the better. We call that a ”find,” and whoever makes a find receives high praise from the other.

Our TV time “feels” like a time of closeness between us. But in the ATUS, it would be listed as Television time, not Socializing and Communicating with your family.

Telephone

We both spend a lot of time talking to our three adult children on the phone. We’re incredibly fortunate that they all live in Manhattan so seeing them is easy and we do see them often. But talking also feels intimate. We often have substantive and important telephone conversations with them. If they call, we’ll usually drop what we’re doing. One of our children (you know who you are) has an unerring ability to call precisely five minutes after we’ve started our latest TV show.

Again, this would be categorized as Telephone Time and not Socializing and Communicating with your family. But it definitely feels like communicating.

Zoom

I spend a lot of face-to-face time with other NYC-based Substack writers. But sometimes when we can’t meet, we’ll Zoom instead. There’s a difference in the intimacy but the Zoom time still feels close.

Then there are writer friends who live far away. Zooming with them brings us closer, especially if I’ve been lucky enough to meet them face-to-face on their home turf or on mine. I’ve observed that, generally, the face-to-face visits give subsequent Zooms a greater vitality.

One of the Substack writers I enjoy interacting with is

Laura Kennedy

. She lives in Canberra, Australia, ten thousand miles away and fourteen hours ahead of NYC in time. One day, perhaps, Laura and I will meet in person but in the meantime, I “see” her when I participate in her book discussion groups or when we collaborate on Substack posts. Our interactions feel like robust social communication.

Zoom is yet another significant and relatively new type of interaction that would be categorized along with FaceTime as Telephone time although it often feels like socializing.

Going to Parties

The iconic Toga party scene from Animal House with John Belushi

The idea for this post came after I watched

Emily Sundberg

and

Derek Thompson

have an engaging video conversation about why “partying” had plummeted according to a variety of sources, including the ATUS.

The ATUS definition for partying has the heading of “Attending or hosting parties/receptions/ceremonies” (Further details are in the footnote.) ⁵

We host dinner parties or events at home about ten times a year. These would clearly qualify under the ATUS definition of hosting. This weekend, however, we have friends from out of town and our daughter Lauren’s family staying at our house. The entire weekend is not a “Social Event” as defined by ATUS. It’s not a party either. But if Max starts throwing toilet paper confetti around, it’ll feel like a party!

I spent forty minutes being partially parasocial

I’m referring to watching the video conversation mentioned above between

Emily Sundberg

and

Derek Thompson

about the “death of parties.”

What was I actually doing? It felt a lot different than watching a TV show, which is how it would be counted by the ATUS.

Instead, I felt like I could have been at a party sitting with two smart and engaging people having an interesting conversation, with me happy just to listen.

I’ve met Emily a few times but not Derek. The two of them talked about “parasocial relationships” where you don’t know the people you’re watching or listening to or reading about. I suppose my relationship with Derek is “parasocial,” a word I shrink from using as it makes me feel like a sociopathic stalker.

Then I thought about the deep and wonderful parasocial relationships I’ve had with fictional characters in the books I’ve loved. There are not many people in real life I know better than Charles Swann or Marcel from In Search of Lost Time or Jane Austen’s Emma or Saul Bellow’s Tommy Wilhelm from Seize the Day. So, maybe parasocializing is okay.

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Question for the comments: In your own experience and as you define it, how has the allocation of your socializing time changed compared to the near or distant past?

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The video I watched of Emily and Derek in conversation is below. Highly recommended.

Derek Thompson and I are talking about the death of parties.

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1. American Time Use Survey 2024 Categories by Code. The codes include same strange items such as setting your TiVo or DVR as part of Television watching or making a TikTok video as part of Arts and Crafts.

2. Evaluating Non-Response Rates and Bias in the American Time Use Survey

3. There is a separate add-on code for whether you’re doing activities alone or with others. There is overall tracking of time spent alone or with others for all activities.

4. I’m in charge of finding and curating what we watch, and I take my job very seriously. I try to maintain a quality backlog of shows by consulting many sites and sources. I’ll often read a few reviews before committing to a movie or a series.

5. Attending or hosting parties/receptions/ceremonies

• attending graduation ceremonies (for adults)

• attending birthday parties

• attending a charity social event

• attending bachelor/ette party

• attending receptions

• attending housewarming

• attending parties

• attending holiday open house