Still Bowling Alone

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Photo by Kalle Stillersson on Unsplash

Just over twenty years ago, Robert Putnam published a book called Bowling Alone, in which he used data-driven evidence to show that Americans were participating in the civic life of their communities at rapidly declining rates. People were joining fewer organizations, for example, and attending church less regularly too. They were writing to their elected officials and attending public meetings less often, and having dinner with their neighbors more rarely than those in previous generations.

According to Putnam, groups that had increased in membership, such as AARP and the Sierra Club, were not ones that fostered face-to-face interaction among their members, while other organizations that revolved around in-person meetings like the Knights of Columbus, Lions Clubs, and Boy and Girl Scouts, had generally declined in membership. And as the title of the book suggests, rather than joining bowling leagues as many people did in the 1960s and 1970s, people by the late 1990s were, you guessed it, bowling alone.

Why did Putnam see this as a problem? For several reasons. First, in-person interactions help to develop social capital, which is a term Putnam uses to describe the network of relationships and connections between people that generally build up the cohesiveness of a community. Social capital is marked by trust, empathy, and other generally positive feelings of goodwill towards one another. So conversely, if people are not spending time together on shared interests or projects with shared purpose, these traits of cohesiveness do not form as easily and, in fact, quite opposite feelings of distrust and dislike are more apt to develop. These latter types of communities are more likely to be politically divided, less likely to come together to support one another in emergencies or other times of need, and just less happy places to live than communities bound together by amicable feelings of shared concern and mutual care.

Secondly, bowling leagues in the 1960s (and other similar venues), were often where business got done. It is where people made connections that got them new job opportunities or promotions, or where customer relationships were developed. People like to do business with people they trust, and trust was cultivated in Friday night leagues at the end of a long week. It was also where people made new friends and developed new relationships.

Third, in-person interactions speed up the flow of information. Maybe the information is that neighbors should come together to advocate for improved sidewalks or that a house is about to come for sale down the street or a particular business has a good deal going; in-person interactions in social or civic settings facilitate quicker communication than if people are trying to learn about things in isolation.

And lastly, according to Putnam, improved social capital leads to more individual happiness and fulfillment in life. Although the introverts among us might disagree, coming together is part of the so-called “good life.” Positive human interaction leads to warm feelings of friendship, relatability to one’s neighbors and coworkers, and dating opportunities, marriage, and friendship. And many types of interactions like church league softball, workout groups, or just going for a walk with coworkers, are good for both the body and mind, leading to overall greater happiness in life.

Twenty Years Later

Despite Putnam’s optimism in Bowling Alone that the tide of declining civic participation could be reversed through various efforts and reforms (Putnam suggested greater civics education in school, campaign reform that decentralizes political power, urban planning that centers and fosters a sense of community, etc.), civic participation has generally only continued to decline. There are exceptions to this, several of which Putnam noted at the time including an increase in volunteerism especially among young people, a rise in Evangelical church membership (standing in contrast to generally declining church membership in other denominations), and the increased prevalence of self-help groups. Voter turnout was also around 50% in 2000 but increased to 62% by 2020, although this could be a sign that voters are just supercharged by algorithm-driven rage today, leading them to be more motivated to vote (more on algorithms below).

Sadly, however, other metrics of social capital have only continued to decline in the past two decades:

• According to the National Center for Charitable Statistics, approximately 50% of Americans volunteered regularly in the 1990s, but only about 25% do today.

• Forty years ago, about 20% of American workers were members of unions. In the year 2000, it was about 13.5%. Today only about 10.3% of workers are in unions.

• In 2000, about 70% of Americans were members of a church, synagogue, or mosque. Today, that number is just 47%, which is a pretty staggering drop.

What Has Happened?

For all the hope that technology would better connect people and lead to more cooperation and friendliness, the opposite has occurred. We are atomized and isolated from one another even as we scroll through social media phones seeing updates, photos, and musings from our friends and family members. Study after study shows that time spent on social media is highly correlated with depression.

It may come as no surprise that the engineers who built Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram used some of the same tools and tricks employed by casino companies to trick people out of their time. The dopamine hit we get from scrolling through our devices has replaced the need to seek out in-person human connection. Maybe it’s a Saturday night on the couch scrolling through Instagram instead of going out to dinner with friends, or maybe it’s sitting on a park bench looking down at your phone instead of watching your kids play or instead of interacting with the other moms and dads at the playground: we are increasingly in our own digital boxes absorbing high volumes of relatively low-value content alone in the dark or sitting alone on the bench.

Vivek Murthy, who was the United State Surgeon General under Presidents Obama, Trump, and Biden, has called out an “epidemic of loneliness” nationwide, saying:

Loneliness is a growing health epidemic. We live in the most techno- logically connected age in the history of civilization, yet rates of loneliness have doubled since the 1980s. Today, over 40% of adults in America report feeling lonely, and research suggests that the real number may well be higher…

…Loneliness and weak social connections are associated with a reduction in lifespan similar to that caused by smoking 15 cigarettes a day and even greater than that associated with obesity. But we haven’t focused nearly as much effort on strengthening connections between people as we have on curbing tobacco use or obesity. Loneliness is also associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, depression, and anxiety. At work, loneliness reduces task performance, limits creativity, and impairs other aspects of executive function such as reasoning and decision making.

This perspective is all the more notable considering that Murthy wrote the above in 2017, three years prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which, of course, made everything much worse. For several months, people were extremely isolated, oftentimes by government mandate. But even after lockdowns loosened up, there was still a long period of time before life got back to normal. For many, it still hasn’t. So much has changed including the way we work, as millions of Americans now work from home either by choice due to preference of convenience, or because businesses do not want them back in the office, which can help those business save money on office space, utilities, and other incidental costs. While working from home is a financial game changer for many people to the positive, there is still the loss of countless “water-cooler” moments of interaction and human connection with coworkers and customers that you just cannot get the same way through a phone call, online chat, or Zoom.

What To Do

My friend Dennis Marble, who was the longtime director of the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter here in Bangor, Maine, shared a wise observation with me once. He said that everyone used to have front porches, but now people have back decks. That feels very true when you think about it. We’ve been steadily transitioning away from human interaction either by conscious choice of subliminally. Why?

I think technology is a huge part of it. Plus the algorithms that social media is built around are constantly feeding us negative material that stirs up our emotions in bad ways. Maybe we just don’t want to hang out with people anymore because we do not like them as much, or we get enough of a superficial connection with the people we do like through seeing their updates on Facebook that the need to connect in-person feels less urgent.

I think we are also collectively just really tired all the time from the emotional weariness that comes from all of those countless little hits of stimulation that come from scrolling through social media. Plus people are working as hard as ever. I admit myself that after a long day of work I’m much more likely to go home and crash than to go to happy hour with my friends and coworkers, fun as those times generally are. I think pre-pandemic I used to go out a lot more. Granted, I was three years younger than I am now, but I think the weight of the pandemic, the weariness of the world, and maybe the mental stimulation overload from scrolling through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are just making me feel less social.

So what to do? I’m not perfect and I don’t want to make it seem like I have it figured out. Plus in the paragraph above I just admitted to my own feeling of introversion and anti-sociability. But I do often consciously try to think of ways to counteract feelings of isolation in my life despite what I’ve written above. For me, I get a good amount of my socializing through service to the community whether it was my former time on the Bangor City Council, my current service on the Bangor School Committee, or a number of boards and committees I serve on including Good Shepherd Food Bank and the Maine Community Foundation. These things are time intensive, but also rewarding and a good way to spend time with others in common cause.

I also try to do group runs every once in awhile, and would note that the social media workout app called Strava, to me, stands in stark contrast to the others I’ve mentioned in this article as a great way to follow the runs, bike rides, hikes, and races of friends and acquaintances online. I have developed some real friendships through Strava, and it has given me accountability and motivation in generally positive ways to be a more healthy person.

My wife and I try to do other things, too, like purposely having lawn chairs on our front yard from spring to fall that we sit on so we can watch the kids play out front and talk to neighbors as they go by rather than just sit in the back yard (although we do that too). We like to invite people over to our house to make cookies with us and the kids, or to have the kids watch a movie together while the grown-ups share drinks and laughter in the kitchen. In fact, at one such gathering a year ago, I told my friend and neighbor down the street about a job opening at the bank where I work. He applied and was hired. Maybe I would have thought of him anyway for the job without beings several beers deep with him at the kitchen counter that night, but maybe not. That one gathering among neighbors was a life-changing thing for him and also made my work situation greatly improved by getting the chance to work with my friend.

The isolating effect of technology is not going to go away. I have gone through 30-day periods where I log off of social media altogether and I may do so again soon as I think I am feeling the itch to break away for a little while. But it’s almost impossible this day in age to completely check out from technology. So I think the only solution is to be aware of its isolating impact, and to consciously and proactively counter it by cultivating in-person interactions. Maybe that is drinks with the neighbors, maybe it is a volunteer activity, maybe it is just a walk around the block where you say hi to people you meet along the way. Even if I am not feeling in the mood to do such things, I generally feel pretty good about it afterward.

Like my friend who found his way into a new job, I have gained countless personal benefits from my own civic involvement in the community. The Bangor Rotary Club, where I am also a member although admittedly with not a 100% attendance record, has a song the Club sings at the beginning of each meeting with a line, “One profits most who serves the best,” and I think there is more than a grain of truth to that. I owe a lot of my own financial well-being and that of my family from being a person who has been highly involved with my community, giving back however I am able. I dare say the bank where I work wants me (and pays me) as much for my community involvement as they do for my ability to underwrite a commercial deal.

But on a deeper non-financial level, the greater profit I have received from being involved with the community has been the positive feelings of warmth and fulfillment from the hundreds of interactions I have had with fellow community members, friends, and neighbors through my time being involved with things. This is, indeed, the stuff of the good life (even if you do have to sit through a lot of long meetings).

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Ben Sprague lives and works in Bangor, Maine as a Senior V.P./Commercial Lending Officer for Damariscotta-based First National Bank. He previously worked as an investment advisor and graduated from Harvard University in 2006. Ben can be reached at ben.sprague@thefirst.com or bsprague1@gmail.com. Follow Ben on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Opinions and analysis do not represent First National Bank.