Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival of American Community

He wrote an entire book about the social fabric called Bowling Alone who's kind of the pioneer in the idea of social capital and what he said is that he went in with to writing this book with the idea that diversity is our strength and then he did some research and what he found is that ethnic diversity only correlates with two things and these are his words. Increased TV watching and increased protest marches that's all it, unless, unless it is within the boundaries of a common goal.

Robert Putnam in his book, Bowling Alone, he's a social scientist.

He talks about how in the early 1900s, America was in these really dark times, really dark times. You had polarized politics, crime was terrible, immigration was off the chain and unchecked and people were screaming that America was on its last leg.

25 years ago, Bob wrote a book called Bowling Alone. It was grounded in data, and it offered a simple premise. Once upon a time, Americans joined bowling leagues. Now they're going bowling by themselves.

He extended the metaphor, positing that our declining social connections were leading to a decline in our democratic society. Lonely Americans, he wrote, are not great for America.

The book was a strike. It's still influential today.

In the book Bowling Alone, which was written almost 30 years ago, 25 to 30 years ago, I talked about the decline in these connections, decline in what I called social capital.

Putnam is also the author of the landmark book Bowling Alone, which was published in 2000.

Putnam's work shares a lot of the themes that I was just talking about today.

He wrote some of the seminal work on community membership and did some of the longest ranging studies on that.

Putnam is also the author of the landmark book Bowling Alone, which was published in 2000.

Now this concept of social capital, as you may know, Stephen was popularized in a very well-known book by Bob Putnam called Bowling Alone.

The reason for the title of that book is social capital is notoriously difficult to measure.

It is that social networks have value.

So I was amazed to find, I remember actually discussing this with Bob in his office at Harvard that the number of bowling alleys is actually very highly correlated with the rates of upward mobility in our own data.

Putnam is also the author of the landmark book bowling alone, which was published in 2000.

That's a really enormous effect David Halpern again from the British government's behavioral insights team as Obvious as the benefits of social capital might seem we almost hardly seem to notice that it's there Says incredibly consequential and we see it in lots of areas of policy that we touch on

In other words, would it be in his words a fancy television? In other words, it will isolate us more and more or would it be a fancy telephone and would connect us more and more Because technology has both those capabilities

Putnam found that social capital was relatively low in the US in the early 1900s and rose fairly steadily through the 1960s But that's when the decline began.

But he warns it's not easy to do diversity diversity brings out the turtle in us That in a more diverse setting everybody kind of pulls in and disconnects from their neighbors

He was trying to sound the alarm. He recently spoke with, I think it was the Times again, and said, nothing's improved.

Nothing's improved. It was just this morning, I think. I think I listened to this this morning on their podcast. Where he said, I tried to sound the alarm, but it's only gotten worse. It was six or seven years before the iPhone came out that I published. First it was an article, then it was a book. And we've only gone into our corners more, both in terms of our devices, the way we live our lives and our politics.

He got annoying and started to talk about Trump, of course, in a completely inappropriate way. But the underlying point, the first point is well taken.

There are two ties that are important in socialization. One is to people who are like you and the second is to people who are not like you.

He said, well, they don't they don't pursue number two. They have the bonding that comes with being around people who are like you, but they refuse to reach out beyond MAGA. You know, they demonize people outside of MAGA.

There's this great Harvard researcher named Robert Putnam. He wrote a book called Bowling Alone.

about 20 years ago, a great social scientist named Robert Putnam wrote a book called Bowling Alone.

you know bowling alone that great book by the Harvard researcher came out before the phone as far as I can remember with the whole idea that we we now this was a famous book about how we used to have bowling leagues.

like that book bowling alone you know like um and how people are really trying to create some sense of community

I also saw and wrote a little bit about sort of the breakdown of the normal mechanisms of community like that book bowling alone you know like um and how people are really trying to create some sense of community and I just did an interview about how an app can do that

For more on Brett's story read his book, Alone.

It's what was written about prophetically and it turns out prematurely in "Bowling Alone."

And there's been many social studies, including the book Bowling Alone, that found that when demographic changes are so strong and so swift, it causes a depletion in trust in both institutions and trust among individual people, not just among people who look differently than you, but people who look the same than you.

Bob Putnam who wrote Bowling Alone and whose work I think you know of.

Bob Putnam wrote Bowling Alone about how as you know I guess like that Americans are spending time alone that they used to spend with friends

is that American adults spend time alone that they used to spend with others and he would I think say that what churches do and what pubs do and softball leagues for adults and volunteering for the Salvation Army and a lot of other institutions.