Name: How We Live Now
Rating: 4 (26 reviews)
Author: Bella DePaulo

What’s in it for me? Take a peek into the households of America and learn about the modern family.

The way we form families and live together has changed over history. Yet recently, there has been a seismic shift in how American families live and create communities.

We hear plenty about the “death” of the traditional nuclear family. Is this really true? And if it is, what exactly is taking its place?

The short answer is that there has never really been a “traditional” family; how we live together has always changed and morphed with the times. Americans today are exploring many community options, some based on modern ideas and some reaching back a hundred years.

In these blinks, you’ll find out

why millennials prefer to cohabitate with parents rather than rebel;
how the internet is helping single moms find other single-mom roommates; and
why living alone today is more “normal” than living with a partner.

Every person in society is seeking the right balance of sociability and solitude.

When you hear the word “alone,” you might immediately think, “lonely.” Similarly, the words “quiet” and “peace” are often used interchangeably.

These two-word associations reflect two ways of thinking about being with oneself.

In fact, people vary greatly in their need for solitude and their enjoyment of the presence of others. While nearly every person requires some time alone, some describe this feeling as a desire, while others see it as a craving or need.

People who need solitude, for example, say they can only fully recharge and center themselves by being completely alone. Even if a good friend were reading quietly in a corner of the room, they say, part of their attention would always be on that person.

Other types of people describe being alone as “boring” and become sad when no one is around. Even when such people want to be alone, they still enjoy hearing the footsteps or voices of roommates amid their semi-solitude.

This brings us to one of the main ways you can manage solitude: by choosing the fashion in which you live, you regulate access to yourself and others. In selecting a living arrangement, you decide how much control you will have over the extent and depth you get to know others, and in turn, how well they get to know you.

For example, if you live in a co-housing community with a common meal room and kitchen, you’ll have many opportunities to become friends with people around you. You can decide how close you get to others by choosing how often you enter common spaces.

And if you share a house with someone, it’s inevitable that you’ll run into each other – for example, in the morning before work or late at night when returning from a party, even if you would prefer not to!

Next, we’ll look at different living arrangements people have created to strike the right balance between sociability and solitude. We’ll start with those that provide the most togetherness and progress to those that cherish privacy.

With parents and children getting along better than ever, living together has great benefits.

It’s often said that the family as a social institution is losing its importance, but this simply isn’t true.

Young people, in fact, are increasingly returning to their parents’ homes or living there longer for financial reasons. Indeed, between 1980 and 2012, the number of 25- to 34-year-olds who lived with their parents doubled. Why did this happen?

By balancing community and autonomy, cohousing communities are a modern version of village life.

Communal living is often associated with hippies, free love and rock ’n’ roll. But other, perhaps less sexy aspects are also important, such as caring for the environment and sharing resources.

Today cohousing communities across the United States are sprouting up, inspired equally by early “hippy” pioneers and modern environmental concerns.

The best possible parenting structure for a child is not necessarily a traditionally married couple.

Whether it’s due to the rise of feminism or the increasing acceptance of divorce, the number of births by single women has increased dramatically in recent decades.

In 1970, only 11 percent of all births were to single women, compared to more than 40 percent since 2008.

Key ideas in How We Live Now

What is How We Live Now about?

In How We Live Now (2016), you’re taken on a virtual trip across the United States to explore the different ways in which Americans create homes for themselves, their families and friends. These blinks reveal the latest trends in communal living as well as the forces driving people to create new, fascinating ways to live.

About the Author

Bella dePaulo is a project scientist in social psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She is the author of numerous articles that have appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, among others. She received a doctorate from Harvard University in 1979.