[araes]

Personally, tend to believe it's iterative (like the iterative method in software).

Basically, it has both issues. Your rationalization is valid, and its one side of what's going on. Society de-socializes, the clubs and activities still exist, yet less and less people take the opportunity. Those activities and clubs then wither and fade away with lack of participation.

However, on the other side, once those clubs and activities vanish, then opportunities that might have been there before no longer exist to even attempt. An opportunity for socialization vanishes, thereby accelerating the de-socialization.

Very tragedy of the commons type result. There's a communal field. Then some participants start abusing the communal field. Then people accepted of the communal situation previously (because of fair behavior) start pulling back and becoming stingy / paranoid / anti-sharing in response to the exploitive actions of their neighbors. Then the communal resource no longer exists and is ruined for all participants. People who might have joined the communal field use previously no longer have a communal resource to join.

[20after4]

Another factor, presumably, is that people at the low end of the income spectrum simply don't have any time to socialize because simply surviving takes almost all of their time and what is left is simply exhaustion.

Many parts of the world are experiencing very extreme income inequality as more wealth gravitates towards the top. I suspect this is happening almost everywhere but it definitely seems to be the case in the US, Canada, the UK and (to a lesser extent, perhaps) in western Europe. With the bottom 50% of the population just barely able to survive it's not at all a surprise that social activities and opportunities are going extinct.

I think socializing really is a luxury not afforded to most people. The folks in the top 50% of income live in a very different world from the bottom 50%

[araes]

Generally agree. Had about the same experience working the last job. Took significant effort to go out and find social activities, or develop regular social appointments each week that encouraged participation. Find a board gaming group, just to leave the house after work. Develop a roleplaying group, just to leave the house after work.

Many days of the draining 9 to 5 that mostly just encouraged crashing on the couch and trying not to do very much for several hours. And that was a relatively stable paying job by comparison to many. Working a normal plus a gig job in the modern world seems like there would be little time for anything else.

On the wealth gravitating, had the same consideration (figure many have). With the excessive focus on wealth, the majority of the world is different for the upper 50% (with the caveat that they then focus into the upper 50%, of the upper 50%, of the upper 50%, ect...)

Personal view is it would not be so bad, if the wealthy were actually spending anything. Except unfortunately it seems to have turned into the Russ Hanneman joke from Silicon Valley. They don't want to spend anything because they're worried about losing their status on the ladder bracket. And the only objective is "move to the next upper 50%." If you're $999 millionaire, you fall off the "wealthy" list, and it's like binary where suddenly you get uninvited from all the events people on "the list" get to go to.

From a game designer background though, it's frustrating, because it's like a game where there's 10-20 possible "resources", and all anybody will pay attention to is the "coin" quantity. Almost nothing else provides any form of status or tangible benefit. Academic citations don't really provide that much. Military rank doesn't really provide that much. They all still converge towards "bank account" and "coin" quantity.