Americans are spending more time alone, eating more meals alone and socializing less. All that's exemplified in a stunning trend:

• The share of U.S. adults who say they host friends or family at home at least once a month has plummeted 70% since 1975, Substacker Derek Thompson writes this week.

Why it matters: Having people over was once a fixture of American social life. Now, hosting is becoming a disappearing art.

📉 By the numbers: 50 years ago, 42% of Americans hosted friends or family at least monthly, per DDB Needham Life Style survey data.

• Today, just 12% do, Thompson writes, citing new Data for Progress polling that replicated the DDB Needham Life Style survey.

Zoom in: Thompson points to several forces that have made hosting harder. Among them:

• 🎶 We're spending our free time differently. Americans are traveling, attending concerts and exercising far more than 50 years ago — but those activities aren't necessarily social.
• 🧒 Family life got busier. Today's parents spend more time caring for their kids than past generations did. Millennial dads, for example, spend four times as much time on child care as boomer dads did, Thompson notes.
• 📺 "It's too much fun to be home alone," Thompson writes. We have a buffet of entertainment options at our fingertips, from TV shows to movies to podcasts and more.

👓 What we're watching: Younger people are pushing back on the new normal and craving more IRL socializing — from ditching dating apps to throwing parties just to eat apples together.

• Dinner parties are getting some love, too. Gen Z is putting its own spin on hosting, with themes, dress codes and elaborate tablescapes, Bon Appétit reports.

Go deeper: How to make the most of your dinner party

4 of 5 recently born cheetah quintuplets sit by their mother, Daenerys, in their enclosure at a zoo in Prague.

• More on the cubs.