Broken Bread

Guess who’s coming to dinner? No one. In the early days of NextDraft, my tagline was dinner party prep. I dropped it for a couple reasons. First, these days, the last thing anyone wants to have spoil their appetite is a discussion of the news of the day. And second, no one is having dinner parties, anyway. “Until 1975, half of Americans said they entertained guests at their home every month. But then something changed. Americans stopped throwing parties. Even more fundamentally, they stopped visiting each other. Between 1975 and 1998, the share of Americans who gave or attended a monthly dinner party declined by half. The share of Americans saying they never entertained people at home tripled.” And since just about every other form of in-person socializing has decreased in the 21st century, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that the numbers continued to slide. “In the last 30 years, Americans have seen double-digit declines in practically every measure of socializing. They are less likely to play cards; attend a sporting event; go to the bar; volunteer; or work on a community project. When it comes to hosting people at home, the declines are particularly stark. Since 1995, the share of Americans who say they’ve hosted guests or attended a dinner party has declined by about 20 percent.” Derek Thompson: You Are No Longer Invited to Dinner. Thompson goes through a few possible factors for the dinner decline — all of which I’m going to consider as soon as I get done with the latest streaming series I’m watching alone, in a dark room, while eating delivered food. Don’t feel bad if you’re doing the same. At least with the death of parties comes the death of FOMO.