Anomie

This is in line with sociologist Emile Durkheim's seminal study Suicide (1897 [1997]), which argued that "anomie", or normlessness, could explain variations in suicide rates across countries and time.

Although the hypotheses on what causes anomie are different and reflect the social conditions of different societies, the concept itself refers to the same idea/phenomenon: a weakening of the guiding power of social norms, a loosened social control.

No wonder, then, that all of these women are consigned to their lot. What’s the point? From adolescent traumas to adulthood indignities, their anomie has been overdetermined.

In fact, one of the recurrent themes in all Didion’s books, both fiction and nonfiction, is Americans’ penchant for reinventing themselves, their belief in fresh starts and second acts — a faith, on the one hand, that helped settle this country and fueled the American dream, and yet, on the other, has resulted in rootlessness and anomie, the discarding of personal and public history.

[T]hey duly make the acquaintance of all the dysfunctional, boorish and anomie-stricken super-rich on board, including a hateful elderly Brit couple with the Churchillian names of Winston and Clementine.

Stories about technology-driven anomie and lives that had become unmoored from meaningful values were thrilling to readers in the 1980s and 1990s, but to be a character in such stories is a different thing.