The Great Indoors

If you live in a big American city and work in a growing number of fields that allow you to operate from your living-room couch with no more than a laptop resting on your naked thighs, my situation shouldn’t sound unfamiliar. If anything, it’s an increasingly common arrangement — so common that one day in the future it’s perhaps possible that the majority of Americans will never need to leave home again. I mean, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, most Americans spend up to 90 percent of their time indoors already.

In Pacific Standard, Paul Hiebert discusses how the increase in the number of people working from home, shopping online, and ordering groceries for delivery means fewer reasons to ever have to leave your apartment/house.

Personally, I have homebody tendencies and have the option of working from home if I want to, but just thinking about not leaving my apartment for days on end is bringing on stir crazy feelings. As an antidote to that, read this 2010 Awl essay by Logan about going outside.

Photo: Jessica Spengler

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