Peter McGraw, University of Colorado Boulder

Doing things alone is on the rise, and businesses should pay more attention to that – even on Valentine’s Day

Every February, Valentine’s Day amplifies what single people already know – that public life is built for two. Restaurants roll out prix fixe menus for couples. Hotels promote “romantic getaway” packages designed for double occupancy. A table for one still invites the question, “Just you?”

Yet there’s irony that’s hard to miss. While Valentine’s Day doubles down on togetherness, more adults are living – and moving through the world – alone.

As a behavioral economist, I study what I call the “solo economy.” A growing share of economic life today is organized around people who live, spend and make decisions on their own.

1-person households aren’t outliers

Half of U.S. adults are unmarried, and one-person households are now the nation’s most common living arrangement. This isn’t a temporary phase confined to young adults waiting to settle down. It includes never-married professionals, divorced empty nesters, widows and widowers, and people who simply prefer to live independently.

Lifelong singlehood is also rising: 25% of millennials and 33% of Gen Z are projected to never marry.

It’s a slow-moving demographic shift away from long-term partnership as the dominant adult life path, but a consequential one – reshaping everything from housing and travel to social policy and commerce. One of its clearest expressions is the number of people doing things alone in public.

The rise of public solo life

It would be one thing if the economy were built for two and solos stayed home. But they are going to museums, traveling and, of course, dining alone in restaurants. To assess this behavior, I surveyed single and married Americans about their participation in 25 activities that occur in public – from shopping and dining to attending movies and concerts.

The pattern was striking. Overall, singles were much more likely to do things alone in public than their married counterparts – 56% versus 39%. The difference held across every activity I measured.

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The biggest gaps weren’t for practical tasks like grocery shopping. They were for leisure experiences like going to the movies, dining out and attending concerts. In fact, seven of the 10 largest differences involved retail or entertainment settings – the very places most designed and marketed with couples in mind.

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Bias that keeps people from having fun alone

Why hasn’t the business world paid more attention to the singles market?

The answer lies in psychology. Some reluctance stems from the belief that other customers will perceive solo diners or moviegoers as sad or lonely. These fears are amplified by what psychologists call the spotlight effect – our tendency to overestimate how much other people notice and judge us.

Findings by consumer researchers Rebecca Hamilton and Rebecca Ratner can help explain why this bias is so persistent. Across studies conducted in the U.S., China and India, people consistently predicted they would enjoy activities less if they did them alone – even though they’d be seeing the same movie or visiting the same museum.

But when people actually went alone, they enjoyed the experience just as much as those who went with others. The fear, it turns out, is largely imagined.

Another problem is that solo consumers don’t always feel welcome.

While behavior is changing, markets have been slower to adapt. Most businesses still design experiences around pairs, families or groups. Consider restaurants that seat solo diners at the bar or near the kitchen or bathrooms, or ticketing systems that require purchasing in pairs. The result is friction for solo consumers – and missed opportunities for companies.

Valentine’s Day promotions make that mismatch especially visible. In 2024, IKEA Canada offered a Valentine’s Day dining experience in its showroom priced and designed for two – and only two – people.

After backlash, the company revised the promotion the following year to be more inclusive: “Bring a loved one, a good friend, or the whole family.” It was a small change, but a revealing one.

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Why solo shoppers have outsized influence

Solo consumers represent a large, growing and profitable market segment, yet they’re navigating a marketplace that still treats them as edge cases.

Another study that Ratner conducted with business school professor Yuechen Wu adds an important twist.

Analyses of more than 14,000 Tripadvisor reviews of restaurants and museums show that reviews written by solo diners and solo museumgoers are rated as more helpful – and receive more positive feedback – than reviews written by people who went with others.

Follow-up experiments showed that when otherwise identical recommendations differed only in whether the reviewer experienced the activity alone or with others, respondents were more likely to rely on the solo reviewer when deciding what to do.

Why? Observers infer that people who go alone are more genuinely interested in the experience and more focused on its quality, rather than simply going along with someone else’s preferences.

Being alone, it turns out, functions as a credibility cue. For businesses, that means solo customers aren’t just customers − they can be very influential customers.

Designing for 1 in Asia

Asian businesses are far ahead of the West in recognizing the buying power of people doing things alone.

In South Korea, for example, “honjok,” which translates as “alone tribe,” culture has fueled products and services designed explicitly for solo living. Think single-serve meals at convenience stores, one-person karaoke booths, and restaurants that promise judgment-free service.

Similarly, in Japan, the ramen chain Ichiran built its brand around the idea of “flavor concentration,” which encourages diners to eat alone in private booths.

Officially, the design is meant to eliminate distractions and heighten the dining experience. In practice, it does something more important: It legitimizes solo dining.

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Progress in the US

In the U.S., Disney theme parks and some of the company’s competitors have long used single-rider lines that reward solo visitors with shorter waits, turning independence into operational efficiency – a logic ski resorts adopted decades ago to fill empty seats on chairlifts.

And solo tourism has become a major trend. Demand is growing, and tour operators are adapting offerings to meet it, including specialized tours for singles and adjustments to historically prohibitive pricing practices.

Industry analysis also shows the global solo travel market expanding rapidly, with tailored products and experiences emerging worldwide. Some companies now offer dedicated solo travel collections with no single supplement − the extra fee traditionally charged to travelers who occupy a room alone − and tours designed specifically for independent travelers.

Doing things alone is an opportunity

Valentine’s Day offers a chance to see how outdated many widespread assumptions still are.

It treats solitude as a problem to be solved, even as people’s behavior tells a different story. Yet businesses, policymakers and U.S. culture more broadly have not designed a world that fully acknowledges that about 42% of American adults are single.

In the meantime, singles aren’t waiting at home. They’re out there – at the movies, on planes, in museums and restaurants – moving through public life on their own terms.

Valentine’s Day may always be built for two. But the economy won’t be.

Peter McGraw, Professor of Marketing and Psychology, University of Colorado Boulder

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Last Updated on February 11, 2026 by Daily News Staff

At first glance, the videos seem harmless enough.

Clean subways gliding into spotless stations. Neon skylines glowing at night. Clips of high-speed trains, cashless stores, orderly crowds. Overlaid text reads something like, “Meanwhile in China…” or “They figured it out.”

This is “Chinamaxxing,” a loosely defined but increasingly visible social media trend where mostly young users frame China as a model of efficiency, stability, and modernity—often in contrast to life in the West.

What makes the trend notable isn’t just its subject, but its tone. Chinamaxxing is rarely explicit political advocacy. It’s not a manifesto. It’s a mood. Aesthetic admiration blended with subtle critique, delivered through short, visually compelling clips that invite comparison without context.

And that’s precisely why it has sparked debate.

What Is “Chinamaxxing,” Really?

Despite the provocative name, Chinamaxxing isn’t a coordinated movement or ideology. It’s better understood as an algorithm-driven pattern—a recurring style of content that rewards certain visuals and emotional cues.

Most Chinamaxxing content emphasizes:

• Infrastructure and urban design
• Technology embedded in daily life
• Perceived order and efficiency
• Implicit contrast with Western dysfunction

What it typically omits:

• Political repression and censorship
• State surveillance
• Limits on speech and dissent
• The lived diversity of Chinese experiences

The result is a highly curated portrayal—less about China as a nation, and more about what viewers want to believe is possible somewhere else.

Why It’s Gaining Traction Now

The rise of Chinamaxxing says as much about the West as it does about China.

For many young users, particularly Gen Z, the backdrop is familiar: rising housing costs, student debt, healthcare anxiety, political polarization, and a growing sense that institutions no longer function as promised.

In that environment, visually persuasive content showing order and functionality carries emotional weight. It offers relief from chaos—real or perceived.

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Social platforms amplify this effect. Short-form video rewards clarity, contrast, and immediacy. A clean subway platform communicates more in five seconds than a policy analysis ever could. Nuance does not trend well. Aesthetics do.

The Social and Political Criticism

Critics argue Chinamaxxing crosses a line from curiosity into distortion.

By focusing exclusively on infrastructure and surface-level efficiency, the trend risks:

• Normalizing authoritarian governance through lifestyle framing
• Reducing political systems to consumer experiences
• Ignoring the tradeoffs that make such systems possible

Supporters counter that Western media has long flattened China into a single negative narrative, and that admiration for specific aspects of another society is not the same as endorsing its government.

Both perspectives, however, miss something important.

What the Trend Actually Reveals

Chinamaxxing isn’t primarily about China. It’s about disillusionment.

It reflects a generation that:

• Feels let down by existing systems
• Engages politics emotionally rather than institutionally
• Uses visual culture to express dissatisfaction indirectly

In this context, China becomes a projection surface—not because it is perfect, but because it appears functional.

That distinction matters.

Why This Matters

Chinamaxxing highlights how political understanding is evolving in the digital age. Governance is increasingly consumed not through debate or civic participation, but through comparison clips, memes, and aesthetics.

The risk isn’t admiration. It’s oversimplification.

When complex societies are reduced to visuals alone, public discourse loses depth. But when those visuals resonate, they also signal real unmet needs: stability, competence, and trust in institutions.

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Ignoring that signal would be a mistake.

The STM Daily News Perspective

Chinamaxxing is not an endorsement, a conspiracy, or a joke. It is a cultural artifact—one that reflects generational anxiety, algorithmic storytelling, and the widening gap between expectations and reality.

The question it raises isn’t whether China is better.

It’s why so many people feel their own systems are no longer working.

Related Reading

• BBC News: China Coverage and Global Context
• The Atlantic: Technology, Media, and Internet Culture Analysis
• Pew Research Center: Global Attitudes and Political Perception
• The New York Times: China and International Affairs
• Brookings Institution: China Policy and Global Governance

More on This Topic from STM Daily News

Stay tuned to STM Daily News for more stories exploring internet culture, social media trends, and how digital platforms shape public perception. We’ll be publishing in-depth pieces that break down the societal impact of viral phenomena like Chinamaxxing, the psychology behind online political trends, and the evolving language of Gen Z culture.

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Historically Black colleges and universities do more than offer Black youths a pathway to opportunity and success – I teach criminology, and my research suggests another benefit

Andrea Hagan, Loyola University New Orleans

Historically Black colleges and universities, often known as HBCUs, are well known for their deep roots in U.S. higher education and proven effectiveness at graduating Black students who go on to become professionally successful.

HBCUs are colleges and universities that were established before 1964, with the mission of educating Black Americans, though now anyone can attend.

As a criminology instructor who has spent 13 years studying the relationship between educational trajectories and criminal justice – and a Black woman who grew up in the South and attended an HBCU – I believe that HBCUs offer another often overlooked benefit.

They give young people, especially Black people, a pathway in higher education that they might not otherwise receive. By opening doors to education, jobs and mentorship, HBCUs disrupt the conditions that can cause young people – especially Black people – to get lost in the criminal justice system.

The U.S. incarcerates approximately 1.6 million people. Black Americans are locked up at five times the rate of white Americans. This disparity starts young: Black teenagers are 5.6 times more likely to be placed in juvenile detention than white teenagers, and people who are incarcerated as juveniles are nearly four times more likely to be incarcerated as adults. Overall, the vast majority of Black people are not incarcerated.

Attending a HBCU, or any other university, does not guarantee a stable financial future. And not graduating from high school or college certainly does not not mean that someone will become incarcerated.

But research shows that education, especially a college degree, is closely linked to lower crime rates. College graduates who do commit crimes reoffend at rates below 6%, while people who drop out of high school return to prison at rates around 75%.

This is why I believe HBCUs in particular have an important role to play in helping young Black people avoid this path.

Understanding HBCUs

Today, there are roughly 100 HBCUs in 19 states, as well as the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The schools are a mix of public schools and private, nonprofit colleges and universities.

HBCUs make up just 3% of the country’s colleges and universities. But their graduates include 40% of Black engineers, 50% of Black lawyers and 70% of Black doctors in the United States.

Most HBCUs are located in Southern and mid-Atlantic states – a legacy of when segregation barred Black students from attending most colleges and universities.

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Many HBCUs are also located in rural Southern communities, in particular. Residents of these areas tend to live in poverty and have limited educational opportunities.

Attending a local HBCU is often one of the most practical ways these prospective students can get a degree – in part because HBCUs are often more affordable than other four-year college options.

The average annual tuition for an in-state student at a public HBCU is roughly US$7,700 per year – well below the national average, which ranges from $12,000 at public schools to $45,000 at private schools. Some public HBCUs charge as little as $1,000 in annual tuition for in-state students.

Schools like Coppin State University in Baltimore and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore also offer in-state rates to out-of-state students from places that do not have HBCUs nearby.

Despite their focus on Black students, HBCUs are increasingly diverse.

In 2022, non-Black students made up 24% of the student population at HBCUs. By comparison, 15% of non-Black students made up HBCU populations in 1976.

HBCUs also enroll low-income students, regardless of race, at three times the rate that predominantly white colleges do.

Upward mobility

Research shows completing high school reduces arrest rates by 11% to 12% for both property and violent crimes, regardless of race or economic background.

College takes this effect further.

Studies have found that college enrollment helps young people with histories of delinquency to stop committing crimes. Completing a four-year degree reduces the likelihood of criminal behavior by 43% to 48%, compared to those who started college but did not finish.

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A few long-recognized reasons help explain this pattern. Education increases earning potential, making crime a riskier and less attractive option for people with a degree. Education also encourages long-term thinking, strengthens ties to employers and communities, and builds problem-solving skills that help people navigate challenges.

I have seen firsthand, through my own experiences growing up in the South and teaching students, how HBCUs can help move Black students out of poverty. These schools stand out among other colleges in terms of how effectively they graduate low-income Black students and move them into the middle class, outcomes that research links to reduced criminal behavior.

When researchers rank colleges by whether and how their students improve their socioeconomic status, income and wealth over time, more than half of the highest-performing schools are HBCUs.

Black students who attend HBCUs are 30% more likely to earn a degree than Black students who attend colleges that are not HBCUs. Black HBCU graduates are also likely to earn more money than Black non-HBCU college graduates.

This matters because poverty is one of the strongest predictors of whether someone will commit a crime.

When colleges and universities graduate students who earn middle-class incomes, they help break what researchers call the cycle of intergenerational poverty and incarceration. This pattern describes how children of incarcerated parents are six times more likely to end up in the justice system.

An ongoing money problem

Despite their benefits, HBCUs have chronically struggled with funding. In recent decades, state governments have not given Black land-grant universities – meaning public colleges originally created through federal legislation to serve Black students during segregation – at least $12.8 billion the federal government said they were owed.

Recent federal support for HBCUs has been mixed, as the Trump administration has made widespread cuts to many universities and colleges.

In April 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order renewing the White House Initiative on HBCUs, a federal effort to help support these schools. At the time, he said that Black colleges had no reason to fear cuts.

But days later, Trump’s proposed 2026 budget included $64 million in cuts to Howard University, one of the oldest HBCUs.

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In September 2025, the Trump administration redirected $435 million to HBCUs by cutting funds from grant programs that had supported Hispanic-serving institutions and other colleges that have a large proportion of Hispanic or other minority students.

The context that matters

The U.S. criminal justice system disproportionately affects Black people at every stage – from arrests to incarceration. Black Americans make up about 13% of the U.S. population but account for roughly 37% of all people in U.S. jails and prisons.

According to the National Academies of Sciences, the lifetime risk of imprisonment for Black men born between 1975 and 1979, and with less than a high school education, was about 68% – meaning nearly 7 in 10 in that group experienced incarceration at least once.

I have seen firsthand that when Black students from low-income backgrounds enroll at HBCUs, they become more likely to complete a degree and achieve the kind of financial stability that research shows helps reduce the risk of becoming caught up in the criminal justice system.

Andrea Hagan, Instructor of Criminology & Justice, Loyola University New Orleans, Loyola University New Orleans

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Bridge is a section of the STM Daily News Blog meant for diversity, offering real news stories about bona fide community efforts to perpetuate a greater good. The purpose of The Bridge is to connect the divides that separate us, fostering understanding and empathy among different groups. By highlighting positive initiatives and inspirational actions, The Bridge aims to create a sense of unity and shared purpose. This section brings to light stories of individuals and organizations working tirelessly to promote inclusivity, equality, and mutual respect. Through these narratives, readers are encouraged to appreciate the richness of diverse perspectives and to participate actively in building stronger, more cohesive communities.

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