Hanging Out

Loneliness has become widespread, and many people find it harder than ever to build meaningful connections with others. In Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time, Sheila Liming asks what might help and offers a straightforward answer: spend more unhurried time with other people. She argues that artificial intelligence and nonstop video meetings have left everyday life scattered, screen-bound and chaotic.

The book examines what is lost when life speeds up under digital demands, and it suggests how to get some of it back. Liming combines personal storytelling with close readings of books, films and television shows to show how today's social landscape weakens the relationships that support both self-care and a vibrant community. She draws on episodes from her own life, from a night of drinking with strangers in a faraway city to making music with friends in an abandoned row house in Pittsburgh, to make the case that loosely structured time together leads to a freer and happier sense of self.

Throughout, she presents casual, unplanned contact as the thing that binds people together and community as the remedy for the isolation that defines modern life. The book opens by defining what hanging out actually is, and it frames the practice as a way to reclaim time from the expectation that every hour should be turned into productivity.