Behold, the 'Death of Hosting in America'

A quarter century ago, Robert Putnam warned in his seminal book Bowling Alone that the way things were going, the age-old practice in America of entertaining friends in our homes might disappear in a generation. In a Substack post, Derek Thompson takes a fresh look at the data and concludes that Putnam got it right. It's "astonishing," he writes: "The share of Americans who say they host friends or family at their home at least monthly has fallen from 42% in 1975 to 12% in 2026—a 70% collapse in a half-century." New polling replicated from the surveys used in Putnam's book shows double-digit drops in nearly every kind of in-person social activity, from card games to bar nights. This isn't a shift from the living room to restaurants, Thompson argues, but a broad retreat from face-to-face time altogether.

He lays out some of the factors at play behind what he calls the "great disinvitation": harried dual-earner households, intensive parenting that devours evenings, shrinking friendship circles—especially for poorer and unmarried Americans—and the mounting appeal of simply staying home with our ever-growing options of "screened media." As Thompson puts it, "We have built a world in which being alone has never been easier, more comfortable, or more fun." For all the data, arguments, and implications, read the full piece about the "death of hosting in America."