That reminds me of the following situation. The institute for which I work has often excahnge scholars from all over the world. One time there were several of them from various Western European countries. At the end of their stay, the decided to organize a farewell reception for the institute's staff. They scheduled it for Friday noon and made a really big production - several kinds of food, desert, wine etc. The folks came in, ate the stuff and about 1:30 anounced that they have to go to back to work. The vistors were utterly shocked - In Europe that would be thend of the working day and the party would go on until 5 or 6 PM.
When I was in London, I saw pubs filling in at 5 PM with people who came there to hang out for a while, socialize, and then go home. Here, it is almost unheard off. Everyone is driving back home asap.
I think that the longer working hours are only part of the problem. The other one is dependence on the automobile and the communiting distance due to suburbanization. In London, peple can have a few pints of beer and then take a train home. Here the car demands that you stay sober all the time to move around. What is more, once you get to your suburban bedroom community - it is already late and going out with your friends would require another long drive - a serious obstance to socialization.
And of course, residential housing require constant maintenance - from lawn mowing to fixing leaking toilets, and that takes away most of the weekend time. Th elack of time and the availability of of cheap entertainment on Tee-ve is responsible for the syndrom that Puntnam calls "bowling alone."
The image that comes to my mind of suburbs and cars being comfortable prisons. I once read a story of a gulag guard telling new prisoners on their arrival "zhit boodyesh, no yebat' ne zakhochesh" (You will live, but you will have no desire to fuck). I imagine this saying, with th eaddtion of the word "comfortably" describing well the US suburban society.
Wojtek