# You Are No Longer Invited to Dinner - Derek Thompson

<https://www.derekthompson.org/p/the-death-of-the-american-host>

- Host: [derekthompson.org](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/hosts/derekthompson.org/)
- Saved: September 30, 2026 (2026-09-30T11:53:22Z)
- Record: https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/61ddca15fdda/
- JSON: https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/61ddca15fdda.json

## What Jamie wrote

Pulling on themes from [Bowling Alone](http://bowlingalone.com) and the demise of social structures in everyday life. It is interesting to look at the chart in this article and how much everything has dropped except for three outliers: playing a video game at home, going to an exercise class, or going to a concert. Even those last two are only circumstantially around other people. You are in a group and interaction is none to minimal, typically.

A while back my book club read [The WEIRDest People in the World](https://rwbookclub.com/books/the-weirdest-people-in-the-world/) and there is a section there where they look at the multiple dimensions of society: family, work, clubs, religion, etc. Societies grow with more dimensions. It seems consequential that we have seen these massive declines in social groups. It seems impossible that this isn't at least related to polarization and less empathy in society?

_Related: take a moment to consider that "going to a concert" is one of the jumps up, and that concerts have become ridiculously expensive lately. This feels like an additional commentary._

## Facts

- Kind: [Page](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/kinds/page/)

## Appears in

- [WT352: WT352 — Interviewing Otto for the Job](https://weekly.thingelstad.com/archive/352/), Notable

## Same host

- [How American Dads Became the Parents Their Fathers Never Were](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/db57111db374/) (derekthompson.org, May 5, 2026)

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## Elsewhere

- Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.derekthompson.org/p/the-death-of-the-american-host