Twin Tiers Living 558 Posted March 11 The COVID-19 pandemic merely accelerated a trend that began in 2003. C.P. George/ClassicStock via Getty Images by Brian D. Taylor, University of California, Los Angeles; Eric Morris, Clemson University, and Sam Speroni, University of California, Los Angeles In his February 2025 cover story for The Atlantic, journalist Derek Thompson dubbed our current era “the anti-social century.” He isn’t wrong. According to our recent research, the U.S. is becoming a nation of homebodies. Using data from the American Time Use Survey, we studied how people in the U.S. spent their time before, during and after the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic did spur more Americans to stay home. But this trend didn’t start or end with the pandemic. We found that Americans were already spending more and more time at home and less and less time engaged in activities away from home stretching all the way back to at least 2003. And if you thought the end of lockdowns and the spread of vaccines led to a revival of partying and playing sports and dining out, you would be mistaken. The pandemic, it turns out, mostly accelerated ongoing trends. All of this has major implications for traffic, public transit, real estate, the workplace, socializing and mental health. Life inside The trend of staying home is not new. There was a steady decline in out-of-home activities in the two decades leading up to the pandemic. Compared with 2003, Americans in 2019 spent nearly 30 minutes less per day on out-of-home activities and eight fewer minutes a day traveling. There could be any number of reasons for this shift, but advances in technology, whether it’s smartphones, streaming services or social media, are likely culprits. You can video chat with a friend rather than meeting them for coffee; order groceries through an app instead of venturing to the supermarket; and stream a movie instead of seeing it in a theater. Of course, there was a sharp decline in out-of-home activities during the pandemic, which dramatically accelerated many of these stay-at-home trends. Outside of travel, time spent on out-of-home activities fell by over an hour per day, on average, from 332 minutes in 2019 to 271 minutes in 2021. Travel, excluding air travel, fell from 69 to 54 minutes per day over the same period. But even after the pandemic lockdowns were lifted, out-of-home activities and travel through 2023 remained substantially depressed, far below 2019 levels. There was a dramatic increase in remote work, online shopping, time spent using digital entertainment, such as streaming and gaming, and even time spent sleeping. Time spent outside of the home has rebounded since the pandemic, but only slightly. There was hardly any recovery of out-of-home activities from 2022 to 2023, meaning 2023 out-of-home activities and travel were still far below 2019 levels. On the whole, Americans are spending nearly 1.5 hours less outside their homes in 2023 than they did in 2003. While hours worked from home in 2022 were less than half of what they were in 2021, they’re still about five times what they were ahead of the pandemic. Despite this, only about one-quarter of the overall travel time reduction is due to less commuting. The rest reflects other kinds of travel, for activities such as shopping and socializing. Ripple effects This shift has already had consequences. With Americans spending more time working, playing and shopping from home, demand for office and retail space has fallen. While there have been some calls by major employers for workers to spend more time in the office, research suggests that working from home in the U.S. held steady between early 2023 and early 2025 at about 25% of paid work days. As a result, surplus office space may need to be repurposed as housing and for other uses. There are advantages to working and playing at home, such as avoiding travel stress and expenses. But it has also boosted demand for extra space in apartments and houses, as people spend more time under their own roof. It has changed travel during the traditional morning – and, especially, afternoon – peak periods, spreading traffic more evenly throughout the day but contributing to significant public transit ridership losses. Meanwhile, more package and food delivery drivers are competing with parked cars and bus and bike lanes for curb space. Perhaps most importantly, spending less time out and about in the world has sobering implications for Americans well beyond real estate and transportation systems. Research we’re currently conducting suggests that more time spent at home has dovetailed with more time spent alone. Suffice it to say, this makes loneliness, which stems from a lack of meaningful connections, a more common occurrence. Loneliness and social isolation are associated with increased risk for early mortality. Because hunkering down appears to be the new norm, we think it’s all the more important for policymakers and everyday people to find ways to cultivate connections and community in the shrinking time they do spend outside of the home. Brian D. Taylor, Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy, University of California, Los Angeles; Eric Morris, Professor of City and Regional Planning, Clemson University, and Sam Speroni, PhD Student in Urban Planning, University of California, Los Angeles This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Twin Tiers Living 558 Posted March 11 What do you think? Are you more of a home body since the pandemic, or don't you think that made a difference? If you are, what would you say is the reason? ( If you're comfortable sharing ) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Adam 589 Posted March 12 was already less inclined to venture long amongst the general public than most before covid. main driver of my distaste is the relative "fuckyou, me-first" attitude that exists. Common decency like "excuse me" or "No, no after you" while holding a door has all but disappeared from society. and frankly, im a firm believer that karma is slower than cold molasses; so subjecting myself to assinine or downright dangerous behavior because someone is so self centered as to not give up 2 seconds for sake of another all the while calling out "find a tree asshole" to those speeding through middle of town, or renaming every other driver at a traffic circle or four-way stop sign either Tw@t or dip-shit is becoming less than ideal 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Chris 3,628 Posted March 12 People are more self-centered and aggressive now, very "in your face" about, well, everything anymore. Our society has changed from when acting like an ass got you a punch in the mouth to someone getting their way. That mentality has been groomed and bred into at least a generation or two of people now. It goes hand in hand with general ignorant behavior that already existed. And while they're everywhere, honestly, there seems to be a high concentration of them here in this area. I think the pandemic exacerbated that. And I don't want to be around them anymore than I have to be. So I keep my socializing to private clubs and do my shopping at locations or times of day that there's generally less people out and about. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Hal 609 Posted March 12 (edited) 18 minutes ago, Chris said: People are more self-centered and aggressive now, very "in your face" about, well, everything anymore. Our society has changed from when acting like an ass got you a punch in the mouth to someone getting their way. That mentality has been groomed and bred into at least a generation or two of people now. It goes hand in hand with general ignorant behavior that already existed. And while they're everywhere, honestly, there seems to be a high concentration of them here in this area. I think the pandemic exacerbated that. And I don't want to be around them anymore than I have to be. So I keep my socializing to private clubs and do my shopping at locations or times of day that there's generally less people out and about. Same here ! Except for like today , I will venture out for a dose of “ dumb- assery” to remind me how nice it really is to live in my backwards, junkyard ridden and “ who cares what my property looks like “ , little slice of somewhere between Purgatory and Hell country Village ! Edited March 12 by Hal Share this post Link to post Share on other sites