Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation

by Anne Helen Petersen

But why aren’t we hanging out with other people? Part of the problem is that the ability to easily coordinate schedules disintegrated alongside standardized working hours. If your schedule shifts from week to week—either due to algorithmic recalculations or your own inclination to stretch work hours—it can feel impossible to make plans or weekly commitments. Add in the increased pressure to arrange and supervise children’s activities, and your available hours become even more difficult to overlap with others’. No one wants to admit just how difficult it will be to actually make plans happen, so people declare their best intentions to meet up—for a drink, for a playdate, for dinner—and then cycle into an endless cycle of “that doesn’t work for me, could we do next week?” and last-minute cancellations.