[mibes]

I think old distinction between the words "unsociable" meaning not wanting to socialise, and "anti-social" meaning causing trouble to society, is useful. I guess I'm swimming against the tide with this one though

[panarky]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asociality

[ysavir]

GP is referring to this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-social_behaviour

"Asocial" means being non-social. "Anti-social" means being a problem to society. It's terrible terminology to be sure, but those are the current definitions, and it's surprising that no one in the chain of publication for this article flagged that.

[troad]

> It's terrible terminology to be sure

It's a fairly common pattern in English: e.g. "moral - amoral - immoral", or "political - apolitical - anti-political".

> it's surprising that no one in the chain of publication for this article flagged that.

I think the choice here is deliberate: the century stands accused of being hostile to social life, ergo it is anti-social, not asocial.

[lantry]

The article does describe how these changes are hurting our society, e.g. increased opioid overdoses, increased political polarization; so it could be an intentional word choice to call it "anti-social".