Bowling Alone
The Collapse and Revival of American Community
About the book
Robert D. Putnam's study charts how American social capital has eroded since 1950. Bowling makes his point: more Americans bowled than before, but fewer did so in leagues. Putnam tracks falling voter turnout and meeting attendance, and notes shrinking membership in unions, religious groups, PTAs and fraternal clubs. He separates bonding ties within groups from bridging ties across them. He attributes about half the drop to generational change, a quarter to television and other electronic entertainment, and smaller shares to work pressure and suburban sprawl. Published in 2000 and developed from a 1995 essay, it later appeared in a 20th anniversary edition with a new chapter on social media and the internet.
Mark Manson included it among five books explaining why the world seems so broken, writing that modern society depends on community engagement and that his own study of happiness shows people need shared effort to stay healthy and stable.
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Mark Manson (Founder/MarkManson.net)
The problem is that modern society requires community engagement to function well. When everyone is just off doing their own thing, a lot of institutions and social necessities begin to fall apart. My own takeaway from this, having studied human happiness for years, is that people rely on a sense of community and shared effort to maintain healthy and stable lives. The fact that people are opting out of these opportunities for community and local impact, in a ceaseless obsession of online media and global fame, likely explains a lot of the social changes going on today. And a lot of the drops in mental health, as well.
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