Anti-Social Century by Zeyu Wang

The United States is entering an "Anti-Social Century"

zw735 — 2025-09-26 18:38:31 UTC

Virtual interaction replaces real communication

zw735 — 2025-09-26 18:39:48 UTC

"From 2003 to 2023, it plunged by more than 20 percent, according to the American Time Use Survey, an annual study conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among unmarried men and people younger than 25, the decline was more than 35 percent" （Thompson 3). technology like electronic devices. Like smartphones, social media...... Which makes people talk online more and more, So that they don't talk face to face

worse social skills

zw735 — 2025-09-26 18:45:03 UTC

"where easy home entertainment, oversharing online, and stunted social skills"(Thompson 14).More and more teenagers use many different apps to talk. Their real communication skills are worse off.

Less emotional expression

zw735 — 2025-09-26 18:47:31 UTC

"Some of this screen time is social, after a fashion. But sharing videos or texting friends is a pale imitation of face-to-face interaction".(Thompson 9). He said it's a pale imitation. which makes me think of people talking online. It's a lack of expression, tone, and body language. It leads to misunderstanding and separation.

What is lost in online communication

zw735 — 2025-09-26 18:49:07 UTC

The rapid development of science and technology and its impact on people's lives

zw735 — 2025-09-26 18:50:39 UTC

Historical roots

zw735 — 2025-09-26 18:56:38 UTC

revolution in the 20th Century. The appearance of automobiles and television has brought tremendous changes in the society, which is also the reason that has led people to become more independent. “But in the end, I believe the likeliest culprit is obvious. It was Mr. Farnsworth, in the living room, with the tube” (Thompson 9). Thompson used a metaphor points out that TV is the problem.

Connection between technology life and mental health

zw735 — 2025-09-26 19:00:54 UTC

What people desire more in modern life

zw735 — 2025-09-26 19:04:21 UTC

More and more people has mental disease in modern life.

zw735 — 2025-09-26 22:24:02 UTC

"Countless books, articles, and cable-news segments have warned Americans that smartphones can negatively affect mental health and may be especially harmful to adolescents."

(Thompson 9), He points out that the two big technological inventions of the 20th century harmed mental health.

Idealized life sharing

zw735 — 2025-09-26 22:38:47 UTC

The "idealized life display" on social media is easy to make users feel inferior and anxious, and worry that they are not good enough to live, leading to self-abasement. Just like Thompson Wrote, "When I read Taggart’s essay last year, I felt a shock of recognition. In the previous months, I’d been captivated by a particular genre of social media: the viral 'morning routine' video. If the protagonist is a man, he is typically handsome and rich. We see him wake up. We see him meditate. We see him write in his journal. We see him exercise, take supplements, take a cold plunge. What is most striking about these videos, however, is the element they typically lack: other people"(Thompson 17). People only share the best of their lives, but they forget that everyone is ordinary. Such videos can make ordinary people feel inferior

Pursuing only material life has become a major trend

zw735 — 2025-09-26 22:42:29 UTC

"a bigger house, a luxury car, a job with twice the pay but half the leisure—only creates more anxiety."（Thompson 25）This sentence shows Thompson's idea, the more material life we want, the more anxiety we caused.

Doing everything at home

zw735 — 2025-09-26 23:17:58 UTC

"This finding formed the basis of a 2024 paper, 'Homebound,' in which Sharkey calculated that, compared with 2003, Americans are more likely to take meetings from home, to shop from home, to be entertained at home, to eat at home, and even to worship at home."(Thompson 14). This research strongly supported that in nowadays. People are more likely to do everything at home. However, people's sense of happiness is still declining

what we should do

zw735 — 2025-09-26 23:29:58 UTC

get up and talk to others

zw735 — 2025-09-26 23:32:30 UTC

The NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg told me. “That cue is the thing that pushes you off the couch and into face-to-face interaction.”(Thompson 5). The NYU sociologist suggested that how we can start our movement.

Start to invite people and get out of the house to talk to them

zw735 — 2025-09-26 23:34:46 UTC

"A seemingly straightforward prescription is that teenagers should choose to spend less time on their phone, and their parents should choose to invite more friends over for dinner. But in a way, these are collective- action problems. A teenager is more likely to get out of the house if his classmates have already made a habit of hanging out. That teen’s parents are more likely to host if their neighbors have also made a habit of weekly gatherings. There is a word for such deeply etched communal habits: rituals. And one reason, perhaps, that the decline of socializing has synchronized with the decline of religion is that nothing has proved as adept at inscribing ritual into our calendars as faith" (Thompson 31).

Collective-action problems.

zw735 — 2025-10-07 17:21:37 UTC

"But in a way, these are collective- action problems. A teenager is more likely to get out of the house if his classmates have already made a habit of hanging out"(Thompson 31). We need to connect with the collective

The harm of "Phonebound"

zw735 — 2025-10-12 23:10:59 UTC

Mobile phones not only take up social time but also replace the traditional social mode.“Socially underdeveloped childhood leads, almost inexorably, to socially stunted adulthood” (Thompson 9). This sentence shows directly about the harm of phones.

Data support this view

zw735 — 2025-10-12 23:14:09 UTC

"Teen anxiety and depression are at near-record highs: The latest government survey of high schoolers, conducted in 2023, found that more than half of teen girls said they felt ‘persistently sad or hopeless." (Thompson 11) He uses the latest data to show the seriousness of the problem

The influence of mental problems on adulthood

zw735 — 2025-10-12 23:17:20 UTC

“Socially underdeveloped childhood leads, almost inexorably, to socially stunted adulthood” (Thompson 9). He said not only the children and teenagers were affected, but also adults.

It happens in our lives

zw735 — 2025-10-12 23:22:18 UTC

“The space once reserved for that most garrulous social encounter, the bar hangout, had been reconfigured into a silent depot for customers to grab food to eat at home” (Thompson 2). The change of the bar seats into a takeout station symbolize the disappearance of social interaction

The real problem

zw735 — 2025-10-12 23:35:57 UTC

The real problem that people face is not in these situations of solitude caused by convenience, “But solitude and loneliness are not one and the same... Their solitude levels are surging while many measures of loneliness are actually flat or dropping” (Thompson 5). But being alone does not equal loneliness. The problem is that people don't feel lonely when they are staying alone. They no longer respond to the signal of loneliness.

People's misunderstandings about themselves

zw735 — 2025-10-12 23:44:20 UTC

Some people might think it's due to the COVID, but “Americans spent even more time alone in 2023 than they did in 2021” (Thompson 3). This support not only because of COVID, People are more inclined to an independent living situation.

They actively avoid socializing

zw735 — 2025-10-12 23:47:20 UTC

“I’m alone, anxious, and exhausted; thank God my plans were canceled” (Thompson 14). This is Thompson's description of people's thoughts, depicting their fear of social activities. And it supports that why people are no longer feel lonely even they are staying alone.

People celebrate because they don't have to go out

zw735 — 2025-10-12 23:58:58 UTC

“A popular trend on TikTok involves 20-somethings celebrating in creative ways when a friend cancels plans, often because they’re too tired or anxious to leave the house... But many nights, it seems, members of America’s most isolated generation aren’t trying to leave the house at all. (Thompson 11)

An experiment proved that people think the joy brought by social interaction is not good, so they choose to be alone

zw735 — 2025-10-13 00:00:52 UTC

“Most participants predicted that quiet solitude would make for a better commute than having a long chat with someone they didn’t know... Despite the broad assumption that the best commute is a silent one, the people instructed to talk with strangers actually reported feeling significantly more positive than those who’d kept to themselves.” (Thompson 25)

Result-personally

zw735 — 2025-10-13 00:07:08 UTC

The lost of emotions and the decline of happiness, mental health problems, especially among teenagers, people's attention is lost, and they are losing themselves in this emotionless society, they distorted themselves.

Result in society

zw735 — 2025-10-13 00:15:47 UTC

The inside ring-family and outside ring-online communities are stronger, but the middle ring is weaker, So those people we are not familiar with but known in our lives are separate apart. People no longer trust strangers, and the warmness in society has declined. The anger among the people was ignited

Result in political things

zw735 — 2025-10-13 00:32:33 UTC

“For the past five decades, the American National Election Studies surveys have asked Democrats and Republicans to rate the opposing party on a ‘Feeling Thermometer’ that ranges from zero (very cold/unfavorable) to 100 (very warm/favorable). In 2000, just 8 percent of partisans gave the other party a zero. By 2020, that figure has shot up to 40 percent” (Thompson 21). Trump took advantage of this people, incited their emotions and achieved political success.“Members of this cohort commonly harbored racial or economic grievances. Perhaps more important, Petersen said, they tended to feel socially isolated. These aggravated loners agreed with many dark pronouncements, such as 'I need chaos around me' and 'when I think about our political and social institutions, I can not only thinking'just let them burn"(Thompson 23).This is the darkest influence of the "Anti-Social Century". Those who have been abandoned by society do not support politics itself but the chaotic, which have brought very bad effect to society

Warning

zw735 — 2025-10-13 03:44:35 UTC

This essay by Thompson is warning us that as the inheritor of the future Society, our decisions and habits represent society. We need to step out of the Anti-Social society and not allow it to erode our lives

Isolated people‘s behaviors

zw735 — 2025-10-13 04:10:02 UTC

Those who are isolated because of themselves, in order to find their own value in society, decide to vote for chaos. They want to disrupt the original order in order to find their sense of existence, Those anti-social politicians have taken advantage of these people. Eventually, their success clearly reflect this social issue