Browsing Alone

Do media/entertainment technologies connect or disconnect people? That Americans have become increasingly disconnected from one another and the social capital that binds people since the rise of TV and the Net is an idea much debated since Robert Putnam published Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community two years ago (the book is now out in paperback). The Net -- ironically the world' s most connective medium -- could be radically advancing that trend. Putnam cites numerous surveys that show that interaction with family, friends, and neighbors, and participation in social activities -- from joining civic groups and bowling leagues to voting -- has declined as Americans find more reasons to stay at home. Online, fragmentation abounds. People turn increasingly inward. The big open spaces of the Net have either been corporatized, flamed to death or shut down, and communications steadily turned to exclusive p2p "me media," the fragmented, often self-censored, personalized and specialized weblogs, IM programs and mailing lists that dominate much of online communications.

In his book, Putnam argues that our access to the "social capital" that is the payoff for community and civic work is shrinking. Though the reasons are complex, technology and mass media are primary factors, Putnam says. We spend more time at home watching TV (and, increasingly, working and amusing ourselves online) and less with other people. Our detachment from communal efforts -- and opportunities to meet other people -- grows. In l960, 62.8 percent of voting-age Americans went to the polls to choose between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon; in l996, after decades of slippage, just 48.9 percent chose Bill Clinton over Bob Dole. The inverse correlation between the rise of screen-driven entertainment technologies and civic disconnection is persuasive. So is the epidemic hostility online.

Although Putnam's book focuses on TV more than the Net (since TV is older and its use has been more widely studied), it's impossible not to think about the new ways networked computing may contribute to this disconnection. The Net is the world's greatest communications medium, but the notion of cyberspace as providing a social connection -- remember the virtual community? -- has turned out to be a fantasy. In many ways, the intensely connective Net is helping people become more disconnected all the time. It's the new TV.

This is of no small consequence, Putnam argues. Social bounds are the most powerful predictor of life satisfaction. Communities with low social capital have poor schools, more teen pregnancies and child or youth suicide, and higher prental mortality. Social capital is also the most reliable indicator of crime rates and other measurable quality-of-life issues. Such disconnection has happened before in American life, Putnam writes, especially during periods of great migration and immigration, but it was reversed by periods of stability and the rise of organizations like the Red Cross, the Boy Scouts, and thriving religious organizations.

Of all the many dimensions along which forms of social capital vary, writes Putnam, perhaps the most important is the distinction between "bridging" (or inclusive) and "bonding" (or exclusive). Some forms of social capital are, by choice or necessity, he writes, inward looking and tend to reinforce exclusive identities and homogeneous groups -- fraternal organizations, church-based women's reading groups, snooty country clubs. Other networks are outward looking and encompass people across diverse and different social networks -- youth service groups, civil rights organizations, ecumenical religious associations.

The Net, it was originally believed, would be a "bridging" technology, one that would connect the planet. But the most interesting evolution in software in recent years has been code that permits people to narrow, not expand, their universes. Blocking and filtering software has become epidemic to product against flamers, crackers and spammers. The explosion in weblogs, specialized mailing lists, instant messaging and other so-called p2p media means that people online increasingly talk only to one another, not to people who are different or unfamiliar. The rise of this narcissistic communications is understandable, but it hardly is inclusive. People all over the Web routinely block and filter points of view they don't like or don't want to hear (or buy), so nobody online really ever has to encounter all that discordant diversity that digital technology makes possible. More disconnection.

Thanks in part to the Net, Americans have never had so many reasons to stay home, so many entertaining or useful options when they do. I remember an e-mail I got from a grandmother last year lamenting all the TV ads showing AOL grandmas getting pictures of their grandchildren. "That's nonsense," she says. "My kids don't visit me nearly as much because they feel they can just e-mail me. I love digital pictures, but I rarely get to see my grandchildren in person." Her lament -- the illusion of connection, while facing the reality of tech-spawned separation -- was intriguing.

The rise of the Net would seem to have exacerbated this tendency. Americans had already been spending an enormous amount of time watching television. Putnam found that 80 percent of all Americans watch some TV every evening, while only about 60 percent talk with their families nightly, let alone neighbors, strangers or others. Watching TV has become one of the few universal experiences of contemporary American life.

Increasingly, the Net is one too. It promises consumer use as great as television's, if not greater, since work connects with home. This seems especially ironic, since the Net was supposed to be one of the most powerful devices ever for connecting with humans. Mostly, it connects us with bits and links. In a sense, it is a connective medium. We can stay in touch with friends, colleagues and family members all over the planet. But Americans use the Net to get free data from music to weather, send messages, play games, shop and talk about sex. So the Net could exacerbate the techno-trend that television began. We're e-mailing and browsing alone as well as bowling. The Net could have an ever more striking impact, since it enables users to do things TV doesn't -- like play games and shop for nearly everything. Those, among others, were activities that people once had to go outside to do, where they might glimpse or even speak with a neighbor -- or go bowling.

America was founded partly on the notion of common civic spaces -- taverns, greens. A lot of cyber-idealists thought the Net was becoming our new common space. That hasn't happened. Nasty teenagers, spammers and greedy corporatists have made common turf on the Net either too expensive, hostile or annoying for most people to spend much time on.

Putnam's idea about social capital might be even more timely relevant than he understood.

Comments

great book, but no conclusion

[peter303]

I've personally noticed this trend- that many
organizations filled with boomers seem to be
getting grayer as the younger generations
dont participate. These include professional
societies, hiking & running clubs, etc.
Then too, boomers boycotted the organizations
of their parents- chambers of commerce, church
socials, etc. This book notes in the last 50
years, each generation has been doing less
compared to the previous. The book suggests
about a dozen causes, but none really clinches
it. Nor do the sum of of clauses explain things.
The trend of less civic participation began long
before the InterNet became popular, so I wouldn't
blame the net.

Re:The lack of localization of the net

[spamkabuki]

www.craigslist.org is a bit of a step in the right direction on this front. They localize by region, even localizing within the general Bay Area/SV. And, they are quite successful doing so.

Blogging groups are the answer

[samael]

This is the reason I've decided to have a livejournal account rather than use Radio Userland to roll my own. This allows me to be partof a group, and so far I've had 6 or 7 people comment on my blogs, find people with similar interests who's blog's I subscribe to, etc.

It's not a substitute for newsgroups, but It's pretty fantastic for ranting and getting thoughts out of my head and down on 'paper'.

Re:blogging and the death of the commons

[toolz]

Well, for what it's worth - I disagree. There are more than enough places on the web where a guy can go and argue his head off, braving flames and trolls, trying to make a point.

But there is a place for debate, and there is a place for putting down one's thoughts without having to worry about some twit with a giant-killer complex spoiling it all. In fact, I suspect that blogs are becoming so popular for precisely this reason.

Understand that there is a difference between letting the world know what you think, and taking on the world in a battle of words/wits/etc. Unfortunately, such battles are rarely won when the winning party makes sufficient credible points but (as you rightly point out) when one or the other party just gives up.

If you are worried that the bloggers are taking over - not to worry, I suspect that as long as places such as SlashDot exist, there is little chance of that happening. ;-)

Re:Anecdotal evidence against....

[Heironymus Coward]

I agree with parts of what you said, and see an occasional point of agreement in some of the other threads attached to this article. for example, I agree that the BBS days had more of a local feel than USENET or web communities (because DUH! they were usually local, with the exception of the Illuminati BBS.)

however, I've always had problems with the theory that TV is an isolating force. sure, if someone chooses TV in preference to other activities (and never watches TV with others, or at least never talks while watching TV,) then that person becomes isolated. but even in that case, it's not that TV is an isolating force, but that the couch potato chooses isolation. it would be better to ask why more people are choosing isolation.

I remember reading commentary once about how in the early days of TV and in the radio days before, most of the people you met on the street had seen the same TV show or heard the same radio program you had, so people tended to share a common culture of television and radio; they could talk about what Uncle Milty did last week or about the last episode of Lights Out. it seems that society is fragmenting not because of TV or the internet, but because of increased choice -- you can't count on people having as many shared experiences.

add to that the increased pressures of socializing. believe it or not, people in the '50s or earlier didn't talk to that many more people than today; family, friends, their neighbors, and certain people they did business with regularly (the grocer, the barber, the mailman, the milkman, and so on.) plus, the population was smaller then than now. what is truly different is that we today are forced to talk to more people, either on the phone or when dealing with the government or crowds at the mall or clerks at the various specialty stores we have to visit (compared to one or two stores someone in the '50s would visit.)

and don't forget how many people you have to socialize with if you work for a large company, or if you do any kind of phone support.

so technology is not the isolating factor, really. it's a combination of increased individualization and increased social pressures. TV became more important as an escape valve from having to deal with more and more people every day; its successor, the internet, is also an escape valve, but it allows some buffered socialization that allows you to maintain relationships without constant face-to-face interaction. true, it allows you to maintain relationships with people you may never meet face to face, but it also allows you to meet people face to face that you never would have met otherwise ... and this isn't even new; once the postal system was invented, people began corresponding through the mail, leading to famous examples like robert browning's courtship of elizabeth barrett through the mail, or lovecraft's national network of penpals.

it may seem ludicrous to offer annecdotal evidence to contradict a (supposed) social trend, but really that "social trend" is itself based on annecdotal evidence: the examples of geeks who never leave their homes, or of people in big cities who don't know the name of the clerk at the grocery store. for every one of those examples, you could cite a counterexample: geeks who go to visit people met online, or hundreds of small towns that still have that local feel that Jon Katz craves. plus, wasn't there a study released a few months ago (even mentioned here) that proved people were not decreasing their social time to use the internet more, but were rather decreasing their television time?

Re:blogging and the death of the commons

[rhanneken]

I think you mean:

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
while (1) std::cout << "cout is in the std namespace.\n";
return 0;
}

BTW, the statement "return 0;" is actually optional (if you don't type it, it's implicit). It is arguably good style to include it.

Re:Another article in the stark raving obvious....

[markmoss]

AFAIK, the major force moving people out of Lord Fotheringay's farms was most likely Lord Fotheringay. The industrial revolution began with textile equipment, and one immediate result was that raising sheep for wool often became much more profitable than parceling your land out to sharecroppers to farm. That took something like 1/10 to 1/100th the labor force, and the rest had to go. They could emigrate to America (if they could buy a ticket), or move to the new industrial cities and work in the wool mills, find other jobs, or starve -- Lord Fotheringay didn't worry which, unless they turned to thievery, then it was Australia or hanging...

Internet use - depression? Maybe not

[yali]

there's a mile of similar commentary on the internet (such as neil postman, clifford stoll, etc.). robert kraut carried out the 'internet paradox' surveys that became the sociological proof of this effect, although the earlier findings were later recast.

I want to make sure this last point gets emphasized, because it's received so little publicity compared to the initial report (which gets misrepresented all the time anyway).

If you click on the link, you'll see that the first article is called "Internet Paradox Revisited," and in it Kraut et al. report a followup of the same participants from the original study, showing that the statistically significant but small relationship between Internet use and depression reported in the original paper disappeared over time. Kraut and his colleagues are responsible scientists: they never represented their first study as "sociological proof" (social science is probabilistic rather than deterministic, and most good social scientists are allergic to using the word "proof" in discussing their work), and they should be applauded for publishing data that contradict what they said earlier. In fact, Internet users look pretty well adjusted in the followup. As the original poster pointed out, maybe the people in this study are getting better at coping with new technology and integrating it into their social lives.