Ask Lemmygrad

Social media and the monetization of every public place is the immediate cause. With social media, you can get a facsimile of easy social interaction. For the few who do go out, there are increasingly few places that you can go without spending money. Add in a bad economy and friends are a luxury that few can afford. It's easier and cheaper to sit at home and use social media, hookup when you need sex, and only go out when you need. Social media is the fast food of social interactions. You know its unhealthy but it's the path of least resistance.

But these trends started much earlier. Social media is just the tool used to create it. I can't explain everything coherently but contributing factors to atomization are cars, the economic downturn after the WWII boom, the loss of the church as an institution, privatization of public spaces, monetization of culture under capitalism, the threat organized communities posed to capitalist projects, etc etc.