An increasing number of Americans are just done.

By the way, I see that in the data. There’s a growing number of people whom I have begun to call “the dropouts.” They are looking at all the institutions that once consumed a huge part of American social life and saying, “I don’t need any of this.” The breadcrumb in the data that started me down this road was the typical question about religion.

There are about eleven options listed, beginning with the usual suspects—Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, etc.—followed by agnostic, and then atheist. But the last named option on the question is simply “nothing in particular.” I call this the “meh” response when it comes to religion.

Campbell, Layman, and Green in Secular Surge argue that atheists and agnostics are secular people; they have rejected religion but replaced it with something else. “Nothing in particulars,” however, have only completed half that mission—they walked away from religion but never managed to replace it with anything else. They aren’t secular—they are non-religious, defined by what they are not.

And this share of Americans is growing rapidly.

In 2008, just 14% of the sample said they were “nothing in particular.” By 2013, that had reached 20%. It plateaued there for the next five years or so and then began to climb again. Now, in the most recent data, somewhere between 23-24% of all American adults just shrug their shoulders when asked about their faith. They don’t want to label themselves one way or another.

And, I think that sentiment—the “I’m done with traditional categories”—is becoming an epidemic in American society. Here’s what I mean by that. I took each religious group and calculated the share who described their political partisanship as either Independent or Other AND their political ideology as not sure. In other words, this is the share of people who won’t say they are Republicans, Democrats, Liberals, Moderates, or Conservatives. They just don’t want anything to do with that.

The “nothing in particulars” just leap off the screen here. Sixteen percent of them refuse to classify themselves in the traditional way on both partisanship and ideology. The next closest group is Muslims at 12%. Among the larger religious groups like Protestants, Catholics, Agnostics, and Atheists, it’s rare to find someone who doesn’t want to be classified. For each of these four groups, just 4% aren’t Republicans or Democrats and refuse to be labeled as liberals, conservatives, or moderates. That’s one-fourth the rate of the “nothing in particulars.”

And here’s what is even more startling about this metric—it’s growing very quickly among “nothing in particulars.”

In 2012, about 7.5% of “nothing in particulars” were done with the traditional partisan/ideological categories. But in 2022, that share had more than doubled to about 16%. This same phenomenon is occurring in the entire sample, but at a much slower rate. In 2012, about 3% of all adults were independent/other on partisanship and not sure about their political ideology. By 2022, it was 7.5%. So, it’s risen by about 4.5 points in the general population, but the increase among the “nothing in particulars” has been about 8.5 points. Remember, during this time period, the “nothing in particulars” rose in absolute percentage from 17% to 23%. So, both the numerator and the denominator are increasing.

But this is not the only way in which the “nothing in particulars” have stepped away from conventional institutions. They also have largely dropped out of the American educational system. Atheists and agnostics report a very high level of educational attainment—”nothing in particulars” do not. That’s actually one of the key findings in “The Nones.” But that point gets sharpened when one looks at the trajectory of education among these groups over the last fifteen years.

In 2008, about a quarter of the sample had a four-year college degree. By 2022, that percentage had increased to 34%. Most other religious groups also saw about a ten-point jump in their educational attainment. The Catholic increase was nearly 12 points. It was 11 points for agnostics. For atheists, 33% had a bachelor’s degree in 2008. In 2022, 51% of all atheists had a four-year degree—an increase of 18 points.

But look at those “nothing in particulars.” In the 2008 sample, just 16% were college graduates. That was nine points below the overall average. In the next fifteen years, the share of them earning a four-year degree increased to 23%—7 points in total. In the total sample, the share of bachelor’s holders was up by about ten points.

So, not only have “nothing in particulars” always had a lower level of education than other groups—the gap between them and the larger population is only growing wider. They were nine points behind the median in 2008. They were 11 points behind in 2022. There’s no evidence here that they are catching up.

But here’s one more metric in which “nothing in particulars” are lagging far behind other religious groups—political activity. In the last four election years—2016, 2018, 2020, 2022—the Cooperative Election Study has asked folks if they have engaged in a number of acts in the prior twelve months. In some surveys, it’s four acts, in others, it is six. Here’s the share of each group who checked none of the boxes. In other words, they just don’t do politics.

Notice a pattern? Hindus are consistently at the top. But I think we can quickly ascertain why—most of them are immigrants, and it takes a while to acclimate to the American political system. Additionally, Hindus comprise less than 1% of the total population of the country. So, it’s hard for them to have a large impact on the political process.

But the group that is always in second place are “nothing in particulars.” In the last four election cycles, about seven in ten “nothing in particulars” are completely absent from the political process. They don’t go to school board meetings, they don’t put up political yard signs, and they don’t volunteer for a candidate or campaign.

In a typical election year, Protestants are about ten points more likely to engage in at least one political act compared to a “nothing in particular.” Their closest cousins, atheists, and agnostics, are much more politically engaged. In 2022, just 35% of atheists were divorced from the political process—thirty points lower than “nothing in particulars.”

As both a social scientist and a pastor, the growing phenomenon of people who just walk away from many of the key social aspects of American life is incredibly worrying. Putnam wrote at length in Bowling Alone about the importance of social capital, which are those invisible bonds that hold society together. It’s the reason people care about the local high school even though their kids graduated decades ago. Or, they want to see money spent to clean up the city park even if it’s on the other side of town. It makes us feel like we are part of a larger community.

Where is social capital generated? In the social institutions that used to be woven into the very fabric of American society. And now they have disappeared, and it’s pretty clear that a growing number of people are actively rejecting all the vestiges of what remains. They don’t seek out education, they don’t feel like they fit into traditional political categories, and they seem apathetic to the political process.

These dropouts likely number in the tens of millions, and their ranks are growing by the day as people retreat into apps like TikTok and Instagram. Instead of being shaped by in-person interactions at the town council meeting, the local Catholic Church, or the halls of the local community college or university, they are holed up in their rooms, letting algorithms feed them more of what they think they want to see.

And they are worse for it. And so is democracy.

Code for this post can be found here.