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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.
Katz neglects to consider the fact that Net usage varies tremendously between different people. For example, your average couch potato is probably not very interested in participating in on-line discussions about the state of society, while others find a way to express their feelings, opinions and suggestions more efficiently to a wider audience through e.g. discussion boards such as this one.
I find it somewhat ironic (in the popular usage of the word - disclaimer to avoid dictionary flames) that Katz posts this article on SlashDot.
Furthermore, bloggers get "pundit syndrome" where because their views are "published", they feel they know more than others, thus reinforcing their tendency to intone imperiously rather than enter into debates. This further destroys any chance for a community to form, unless you count a swarm of boot-licking toadies congregating around one blog to be a community.
- adam
As is evident in my sig, I have a problem with the lack of localization of the net: Basically, despite the fact that about 95% of our lives are still local, and always will be (whether it's entertainment, restaurants, grocery stores, etc, or it's issues like potholed roads, a new park going up, etc.), there is exceedingly little localization on the net: There was more of a sense of community when I was on a small town BBS->We all shared common issues and could discuss things that affected our lives locally.
The premise is too complicated to be answered in a binary manner of yes or no. The answer is probably both, yes AND no. I don't interactive with my neighbor when I am on Slashdot. I am interacting with you as you read this. Instead of a flesh and blood interaction, it is mediated through distance, time and the cool glare of phosporus or LCDs. Is it better or worse? Humans evolved to interact on an small scale personal level like most intelligent animals. No we are evolving to interact via discoporeal means. Do mediating technologies throw our psycology off of balance. Probably. Is it bad that kids are getting fat sitting in front of TV and computers? Yes. Is it dehumanizing to interact with my girlfriend over the phone? Probably.
Things change. Life changes. My life changes daily, weekly and yearly through my aging, my growth and my development. Changing technology certainly affects my life. I used to call my folks all the time. Now I email. Less bandwidth. They don't hear the inflections in my voice. Good or bad? I write better than I speak, so my email to them tends to be more thoughtful than my speech. Good or bad?
Life is meant to be enjoyed. Mediating technology can be "value-free" with regards to this endeavour. Use it or not. The choice is yours.
"1802 England
Social Scientist today reported that less people are staying in the village and are moving into the towns. Lord Fotheringay today said "Its getting much harder to get staff these days and I'm having to pay them much more". Lord Fotheringay blamed the movement of people away from the villages on the Industrial Revolution and the improved communication structures in the country.
"Mark my words" he said "They'll be looking for the vote next"
Okay so I'm taking the piss but really is this worthy of an anal gazing article ? I say not, society changes as technology changes, this is about as suprising as your thumb hurting when you hit it with a hammer. Previous Katz articles have been at least contraversial, this is just plain Sociology... ie not worthy of printing out for loo paper. Every generation some Malthus predicts doom and gloom, and is wrong and short sighted.
All research in the social sciences can be reduced to the following statement "some do, some don't" - Ernest Rutherford.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Katz writes that, in providing an alternative for activities that require public presence, such as shopping, interaction between real people has been cut down by the net.
Seriously, though... How many of you have had meaningful conversations with random people you meet at your local mall? And how many of you have had meaningful conversations with strangers on ICQ/IM/whatever? In my case, at least, the latter has happened far more often than the former. While I'm of the old-fashioned mind and believe that you can't really know anyone until you've spent a few hours with them in person, I still find that IM is a complement, not a substitute, to my social life.
In terms of 'public life', the use of the net as a shopping medium doesn't cut into social interactions; on the contrary, by allowing me to shop late on weeknights, for instance, I don't have to lock myself in a car, drive for however long, walk around a mall full of people I probably won't have conversations with, etc. Instead, I spend that daytime with my friends.
Any thoughts?
While it may be argued that the influence of the Internet has reduced the social bonds between people at a local level it has arguably made distant bonds with people even stronger. I routinely communicate with people whom I consider close friends that live nowhere near me anymore. In the "good old days" I might get a letter from them every once in a while, but overall would really be able to have the kind of social interaction that I can thanks to this new fangled technology.
To add to this, I have seen numerous people find communities on-line that they would never have found otherwise. These people can become as close to these on-line friends as they would with people nearby, and some of these relationships may evolve to being an in-person relationship when distance constraints fade.
Basically the internet eliminates a lot of the geographic constraints on socializing. This has positives and negatives. It means that an in the closet gay person in a backwater intolerant town can find supportive peers. It also means that people don't need to talk to the people next door very much. At least with the Internet as opposed to television, socializing is one of it's biggest facets. Rather than being hypnotized by the magic box, you are out there seeing what people think and frequently interacting with them.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
...it's cultural grazing. The herd, with the herd mentality, goes where it will, driven by forces that perhaps sociologists understand, perhaps not (inasmuch as they can't accurately predict trends). There isn't much that can be done about it, really; we are transitioning from an age in which our lifestyle was largely insular and the joining of the community was a 'big deal' to a time when the community is in constant touch and solitude becomes the big deal. We have created something of what we want; people often complain about the stark barren intellectual landscape of TV-land. This is due IMO to the fact that the bandwidth was limited to a handful of channels and tightly controlled by a dozen or so media moguls. Now information is largely free, but the battle over content and information has somewhat skewed the internet landscape to again degrade the experience (spam, DMCA issues, pop-up ads). Still, we prefer to put our energy, attention, and time into this thing, and not the other things, because it has something that we want.
One might lament the changing scenery, one might struggle to understand it, or one might try to resist being captured and carried away by it, but one thing is certain: it is here, it is where life is teeming right now, and you are either in or you are out.
Does the fish know that it's wet? That is, do we really care enough what the effect all these devices and the media they contain have on us that we are aware, that we take time to notice how we've changed? Or do we just swim with all the rest of the fish, changing direction here and darting there, avoiding the pitfalls and grabbing the scraps that float in front of us, unaware of what it is we are becoming because we are too busy becoming it?
Since we are sentient creatures, of course we have knowledge of what we are becoming, how we have changed. But the thrill of the new overtakes us. This is what's happening, and its human nature to join in the fray. There isn't really a problem here; it's just change.
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
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'm not saying that there are not social changes caused by the introduction of new information technologies. we are information driven beings, after all. however, we have to be wary of assigning values to them that are either ultimately 'good' or 'bad,' as despite all these changes, we somehow seem to be able to cope with them ...
Thanks for bringing up a very timely and important topic (or group of topics). The corporatized media in this country has done its best to take over as much of the internet as possible; if they can just make the internet more like TV, where content is absolutely controlled and people are constantly bombarded with "the correct messages" (consume, be silent) then that media machine will be a little less nervous about the internet in general. Forget about television; it has already been bought and paid for by that same insane machine. Take a look at the big Internet providers. What do they offer in the way of content? CNBC, CNN, TBS, all big players in the big machine of the media. But the internet has something TV does not; there are still some alternative sites out there on the net that give a less filtered view of reality. My wife and I do not own a television. Not because we are poor (not that poor anyway), but because there is nothing to the TV except frontal lobe occupation. We made a decision to spend what would have been our "TV money" (cable, etc) on high speed Internet. This has caused a problem that you touched on in your essay; we are out of touch with the TV culture. People that we sort of know sometimes make allusions and references to some popular TV show or another and we just don't "get it." Or we will hear people repeating what we find out to be advertisement slogans as a substitute for conversation. We find, as you pointed out, that we do not spend time talking face-to-face with people because people have largely forgotten how to talk. The TV has turned this whole country into the land of platitudes: "united we stand, pledge allegiance to the corporations that own this land, in god we trust, cleansing crystals," and a plethora of other silly and mostly meaningless slogans that are supposed to stand in the place of reason and discourse. You wonder why people don't have conversations? I believe it is because people don't have anything to say and cannot remember how to say it. I believe TV has taken away most people's ability to think. Will the Internet be next to be seized and "tamed?" If we allow it to be completely absorbed by the machine of corporatization, yes, it will become as useless of a medium as television. If, on the other hand, we (the users of the internet) can see past empty promises and hype and vote (with our $$$) we can keep the net around in a renegade, untamed, and fun iteration that will remain dynamic and useful.
I presume that was a humorous reference to an earlier message in this thread. Anyways, it's a classic chicken-egg inertia issue: Any localized content I've found has no one visiting it (despite living in a town of hundreds of thousands, in a metropolitan area of several million) because people come and see no one there, etc. It's the same reason why alternatives to Ebay can't get off the ground.
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.
/. is only one of many sites I visit. The subjects vary wildly (Computers, Internet Security, Futurama, Farscape, Movie Rumors, etc). You wouldn't catch me subscribed to a mailing list if I wasn't interested in the subject. (Spam mailing lists aside of course.
This is normal human behavior. How many people join clubs IRL whose goals they disagree with? If the Democratic party is giving a fundraiser, will a Republican go there just to open himself to a different point of view? Will a logger attend a Greenpeace meeting? People tend to congregate in groups based on their interests.
The Internet is just another way of doing that. And by no means is visiting a weblog or subscribing to a newsletter exclusionary. For example,
Yet I'm still exposed to differing opinions. On one computer forum I frequent, people come together based on a shared love of computers (and desire to help each other out with computer problems), but apart from that we're very different. Some people are conservatives, some are liberals. Some are hawks, some are doves. Some love Windows and some prefer Linux. And religious beliefs vary across the scale. So while we will talk about computers, it doesn't mean we're agreeing all the time and shutting out anyone who disagrees with us.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
TV is very differnet from the 'net. Using the 'net is NOT a 'universal experience' like TV was in the single digit channel days.
IMHO, anything that gets people away from TV or other passive medium is a good thing. Sure, people are filtering what they see on the 'net but that's also due to there being *so much* communication to be had.
The 'net has given us a new way of talking to each other, by providing a way to publish one's ideas for next to nothing, and to communicate to anywhere in the world for next to nothing. OF COURSE there are is going to be less 'face time' communication - if only because the 'net allows us to talk more efficiently to each other. No co-ordinating times. No traveling. No cleaning the house to entertain.
Grandma, who gets the digital pictures, might get a few more visits in a 'pre net world, but it would not be enough to develop anymore meaningful relationship. On the 'net Grandma would have a better chance of learning about the kid's day in school, because it's easy to email, or for that matter cc Grandma when you email your friends/family, including Grandma 'in the loop'.
My family is separated by the Atlantic ocean - the 'net has increased communication hugely because it's quick and cheap.
Try that with TV.
W9x:Thanks for the make-work project Bill.
The other thing that has changed over the same time frame is the average length of the work day, at least within certain sectors of society. I suspect reduced participation in communities has much more to do with this than with TV per se. People are exhausted when they eventually get home - I know collapsing in front of the TV or a web browser is about all I can muster after a 12 hour day.
I've noticed that my already retarded social skills have become worse since I've been talking to my friends on AIM, ICQ, IRC, etc. I've always been shy and bad at talking to people, but since I've been using the Internet it's been getting noticeably worse. I spend much more time talking to friends online than I do in real life. And these are real life friends I'm talking about here, not people that I met online. It seems that after chatting online for several years I've become accustomed to having a while to reply and the ability to read and re-read what they've written. So now in the real world I "um" and "ahh" for a little while or just don't say anything at all.
Go ahead and flame me now.
I think you're right; the biggest problem I find with most of these arguments (and much of sociology in general) is that they seem to rely on correlation indicating causality. Katz states "The inverse correlation between the rise of screen-driven entertainment technologies and civic disconnection is persuasive." Why is it persuasive? As I've lived through my life the Dow Jones industrial average has trended consistently upward; am I to assume the stock market rise is caused by my aging process?
"the best safety of the frontier...will be secured by total annihilation of the few remaining indians" L Frank Baum 1890
(Emphasis mine)
You mean like this one?
In many ways, the intensely connective Net is helping people become more disconnected all the time
I don't know about that. It depends on where on the Net you hang out. There are some tight-knit groups out there. My own example: next month I'm flying to London from the US for the annual Discworld MUDmeet. This year it's a little extra-special because it's the 10th anniversary of the starting of the MUD. Last year I think there were over 100 people in attendance. We have people come from all over the British isles, Scandinavia, the rest of Europe and the US. This year we might have a few Australians show up. So -- there are people paying hundred of dollars and flying thousands of miles for no other reason than to meet other people who play the same silly online game as themselves. Is that "disconnected"?
And does 'socializing' only count if you have people over for dinner? Oh sure, I don't know the names of the people who live next door, but I know details about people who live on the other side of the planet.
You get out of the Net what you put in. Logging onto a random chatroom and expecting it to instantly become a 'community' is like standing in the middle of Grand Central Station waiting for people to strike up a conversation. You have to give some effort.
The 'net has tremendous, unprecedented power to bring people with extremely narrow special interests together. My daughter has a very rare disease - so rare that there are no local support groups for it because there are so few patients in any one place. The internet provides the only real-time (chat) and semi-real-time (email, BBs, etc) support for families dealing with this. As little as 4 years ago (when my daughter was diagnosed), there was literally nothing on the web that could be called a support group. Today, I know several people I call friends who I have never met f2f who I would likely never have known if it weren't for these places on the internet.
Can the internet create situations that cause anti-social behavior? Sure. But there's no substitute for it in some cases, like narrow-focus, widely-disbursed interest groups.
Its ignorant to only consider local social effects that the net may be having, there is a bigger picture.
I communicated everyday with numerous people from different cultures. Commonly, Russia, Europe and the Americas.
I think this social interaction makes me a better person than _only_ socialising with someone down the road.
Learning to except peoples differences and still work as a team is an import leason for any society.
You may meet people who share your views over IM, but ultimately, you have too much control over your environment, and can cease communication at any time with anyone who might have new ways of thinking or new ideas that you have a hard time feeling comfortable with. IM isn't the only medium which facilitates self-censorship, but it's certainly one of them. Maybe if you're of an age where your person and opinions have already been formed, this isn't so dangerous. However, I can tell you that it is ideological suicide for still-forming minds.
People have self-censorship built in from the get go. If you really think that you can change someone's mind by ranting at them in person you are sadly mistaken. You have no better or worse chance of doing so than you do online.
Some people are so tuned into herd think, that they dont even need TV to tell them what to think- their subconscious plucks it out of the air. These people will search for things that agree with what they think online, and they will ignore people who try to change their minds.
Those who are inquisitive and open minded will gather information, then attempt to discuss it with others before they come to a semi-final opinion. This happen whether they have access to dusty books in a library or broadband. The latter is quicker however.
One of the main differences is that online you _can_ find someone who wants to talk about what you want to talk about quickly, whereas without it doing so is slow and difficult to impossible.
Sure, for the industrial revolution, it turned out that the changes worked out okay.
Of course, other societies haven't been so lucky. The Romans are the prime example. A society that grew so wealthy, fat, inward looking, and of particular relevance, internally divided - they didn't see the invaders at the gate until it was too late, literally.
There is little to suggest that the same can't or won't happen to us.
Like the Romans, we are the most powerful economic and military force in the world. Like the Romans, we use that to get what we need and want - often with no care for any of the consequences that don't immediately affect us.
Like the Romans, divisions between those with power and those without are growing, those without are kept busy with bread and circuses, those with are kept busy creating better circuses and controlling their own power structure.
Like the Romans, participation in the larger
civilization systems are dropping, and increasingly small and diverse groups are forming, strengthening, and working against other similar groups within our society.
Like the Romans, the power held over people's every day lives is growing, and people in the society are increasingly resenting the ways power is being used.
Meanwhile, we in Western Civilization are vastly outnumbered, and those in other civilizations are increasingly turning their eyes toward injustices (real or percieved) that we have perpetrated on them.
Every generation some Malthus predicts doom and gloom, and is wrong and short sighted.
It's kind of like the parable of the boy who cried wolf. The thing that most people forget is the wolf did come at the end.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
You're missing the point. Sure, you have more opportunities to meet different people, but you're completely ignoring the tendancy for people to seek out comfortable situations. In being able to have more control over who you meet, and when, and how, and being able to meet lots more people (no one is arguing that that isn't true) you're participating in a form of self-censorship that anthropologists and psychologists tend to point out is the mental equivilent of pigging out on chocolate.
...
No YOU are missing the point. Technology increases freedom. Freedom always pisses off elitists who think that they know whats best for everybody else. Do you think I give a rats ass if "anthropologists and psychologists" are alarmed if my behavior isn't to their liking?
It's not like pigging out on chocolate, it's like being able to shop at a grocery store instead of eating at the dorm caffeteria. Some people may use that freedom to pig out on chocolate. So what. Others will become chefs.
develop the neccessary skills to deal with adversity, diametric ideologies, different thinking, etc
It seems to me that it is actually the technologically inept that seem to have these problems worse.
In other words, just because you enjoy or interpret the technology around you as 'good for you', doesn't mean that it is.
The world is what it is. Trying to imposes some sort of value judgement on how others exercise their freedom on activities that affect only themselves is an act of elitism that bothers me a lot more than people who eat too much chocolate or don't talk to their next door neighbor because they'd rather chat on the internet with somebody they have more common interests with.
Frankly, I've learn quite a bit about alternate world-views on the internet. For an American like me, I come in contact with many people from other countries, whose opinions I might not ever be exposed to otherwise.
There is a second point to Katz's diatribes -- that people are separating themselves into different communities and not talking to each other. E.g., "conservatives" watch Russ Limbaugh, and set their filters to exclude anything liberal, "liberals" watch only liberal commentators and set their filters... The danger is, if those filters ever get reasonably effective, people may separate into groups that no longer even comprehend the other groups positions.
What sets me to giggling is that every few years someone new notices this process for the first time and gets all worried. Really folks, it was pretty much the same in the 80's, the 70's, and the 60's. (It's probably been like that right back to 1776, but my awareness of such things goes back only to 1964. Although I do vaguely remember a Goldwater rally that must have been pre-1960...) The liberals read their magazines, and the conservatives read theirs, and rarely did the twain meet.
Come on. Any decent net user knows that there are hundreds of communities organized primarily by interest.
/.), and more?
Take for example the connection of many semi-isolated people interested in the same topic.
I think Jon and the book's author are lamenting how we all just don't get together and sing songs together.
I'd argue that small town citizens have a much more wide view of things because of the net than just having the 8 page local newspaper.
Jon, filters are good. I really don't care what happened to OJ, Britney, or Madonna and don't want any news about them wasting my time.
The modern media has basically adopted the position that they have to provide a news item to each demographic group which means real important news stories go unreported.
A second issue is that everything is a crisis so that the media can hype the story to no end. No, everything is not a crisis and just because 4 people are affected out of 300 million does not make it a crisis. Lazy newspeople writing easy stories about one sided issues. For example:
1. homelesness is bad
2. save the rain forest
3. corporations evil
Could this be why I don't watch network news, don't read the local paper, and read news from several different online papers, online link consolidators (e.g.,
I can see it coming, the wave of socialogists and psychologists touting their books on wierd behavior related to and enabled by the net.
Those used to be "man walks on all fours like a dog" items at the back of the paper.