Study: Americans have fewer closer friends:
A new study reveals that Americans are sharply more isolated than they were 50 years ago. “I don’t see this as the end of the world but part of a larger puzzle. My guess is people only have so much energy, and right now they are switching around a number of networks…. We are getting a division of labor in relationships. Some people give emotional aid, some people give financial aid.” Barry Wellman, University of Toronto sociologist. (thanks, lizard!)
This tidbit seems to be getting a lot of exposure today, but I haven’t seen a link between this phenomenon and the pervasive use of cheap energy. What else enables us to:
- travel alone in cars rather than walk, bicycle, or ride public transport
- sit indoors more than outdoors
Think about it. If you sit outdoors of an evening, as people used to do, you know more people around you, just from the sounds of their conversations, if not from seeing them walk by. If you use some other method of getting to work than a single-occupant vehicle, you would see your fellow commuters as something other than competitors for space on the road.
There was a book sometime back called Bowling Alone that dealt with the unraveling of the social fabric, the demise of bowling leagues, service clubs, and other staples of American society in the first half of the 20th Century.