Best Of: The ‘Quiet Catastrophe’ Brewing in Our Social Lives

The holidays are one of the most social times of the year, filled with parties and family get-togethers. Many of us see friends and loved ones who we barely — or never — saw all year. Maybe we resolve to stay in better touch in the new year. But then somehow, once again, life gets in the way. This is not an accident. More and more people are living lives that feel lonelier and more socially isolated than they want them to be. And that’s largely because of social structures we’ve chosen — wittingly or unwittingly — to build for ourselves. Sheila Liming is an associate professor of communications and creative media at Champlain College and the author of “ Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time .” In the book, Liming investigates what she calls the “quiet catastrophe” brewing in our social lives: the devastating fact that we’ve grown much less likely to simply spend time together outside our partnerships, workplaces and family units. What would it look like to reconfigure our world to make social connection easier for all of us? This conversation was recorded in April 2023. But we wanted to re-air it now, at a moment when many of us are spending more time in the company of peo…