Here’s a set of charts from Quartz (via Kottke) that shows how people spend time during different “ages” of their life. It pretty much speaks for itself:
The Quartz analysis is kind of light, but they do have this to say about the solitude trend:
Hours spent in the company of children, friends, and extended family members all plateau by our mid-50s. And from the age of 40 until death, we spend an ever-increasing amount of time alone.
The charts made me think about how urban design and the built enviornment relates to these different factors. For example, in the book Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam connects social relationships to the urban landscape, pointing to commuting times and housing development patterns as reasons why social connections are fraying in the US.
Do you think there’s a pattern here? Is the US different than elsewhere along these lines? Or is this just the data footprint behind the arc of human existence?
(LOL, that’s pretty deep. Imagine those questions asked in a Morgan Freeman voice.)