How technology affects relationships and population decline

30 May, 2025

Here¹ is a wide-ranging interview/podcast episode between Dr. Alice Evans of Kings College London and Ross Douthat (NYT). It covers several topics -

• The struggles of "low status" men
• The effect of smartphones and technology on "coupling"
• the decline in community participation as more of our social lives move online
• The drop in birthrates in the industrialized world (all of which are related to the above)
• What the future might look like (politically, socially)

In their interpretation, the collapse in birthrates is a consequence of the collapse in relationship formation. And the collapse in relationship formation is a consequence of economic / social changes over the last few decades and technological changes over the last 15 years.

They speculate a bit about what the future might look like in an era of population collapse. Religious communities are expected to wield more cultural and political influence (given their higher birthrates). Illiberal parties will benefit when citizens' standard of living declines:

Evans: Well, I think certainly that if people grow up with a certain standard of living and a certain quality of public services, and then those deteriorate as a result of population aging and lower rates of economic dynamism, then people should get fed up and frustrated. Simultaneously, as people spend more time on their phones hooked on these echo chambers, polarizing differently — not just by gender, but polarizing — then the less time that we spend socializing with different other people, the less we develop understanding right across genders and across political groups.

Douthat also suggests that "intentional communities" of families might form in abandoned rural areas.

Douthat: I’m imagining a world of groups with high intentionality. This new world is going to reward people who are unusually intentional about things like getting married and having kids, but also maybe about building a community and trying to set yourself up in one of the spaces created by the retreat of the human race.

Here is a final excerpt. Douthat asks, how should the next generation think about the future?

Evans: So two things on that. First of all, it’s really important that the young people understand the economic implications, so they take it as seriously as we do climate breakdown, first and foremost. That’s what I do in my lectures. And then, given my realization that so much of this is driven by the rise of singles, I actually would pivot to say: So many young Americans are not happy. One of the richest countries in the world, and a lot of young people are deeply lonely and unhappy, and one of the most unique and wonderful things that we have as humans is to find people to love and care for and build emotional connections and devotion and support each other and understand each other. Going back to the writing the Hollywood script, I would go back for those romcoms and celebrate the romantic love, because when people shift their focus from celebrating the freedoms or the secular monks of the 20s, to thinking more about: OK, how can I build friendships and romantic love? Then you get people finding love earlier, and that should encourage a higher rate of coupling. The romantic love would be my optimistic, positive focus that I think would restore both socializing, friendships, mutual understanding, empathy, happiness and — down the line — fertility.

#atomization #birthrate