Thread: Social isolation growing in U.S., study finds

Thanks to television and internet. WHile they have their good uses, they have taken the place of human interaction.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13493733/

Social isolation growing in U.S., study finds
Many Americans have 'less of a safety net of close friends and confidants'
By Shankar Vedantam
The Washington Post

Updated: 3:12 a.m. CT June 23, 2006

Americans are far more socially isolated today than they were two decades ago, and a sharply growing number of people say they have no one in whom they can confide, according to a comprehensive new evaluation of the decline of social ties in the United States.

A quarter of Americans say they have no one with whom they can discuss personal troubles, more than double the number who were similarly isolated in 1985. Overall, the number of people Americans have in their closest circle of confidants has dropped from around three to about two.

The comprehensive new study paints a sobering picture of an increasingly fragmented America, where intimate social ties -- once seen as an integral part of daily life and associated with a host of psychological and civic benefits -- are shrinking or nonexistent. In bad times, far more people appear to suffer alone.

"That image of people on roofs after Katrina resonates with me, because those people did not know someone with a car," said Lynn Smith-Lovin, a Duke University sociologist who helped conduct the study. "There really is less of a safety net of close friends and confidants."

No one to turn to
If close social relationships support people in the same way that beams hold up buildings, more and more Americans appear to be dependent on a single beam.

Compared with 1985, nearly 50 percent more people in 2004 reported that their spouse is the only person they can confide in. But if people face trouble in that relationship, or if a spouse falls sick, that means these people have no one to turn to for help, Smith-Lovin said.

"We know these close ties are what people depend on in bad times," she said. "We're not saying people are completely isolated. They may have 600 friends on Facebook.com [a popular networking Web site] and e-mail 25 people a day, but they are not discussing matters that are personally important."

The new research is based on a high-quality random survey of nearly 1,500 Americans. Telephone surveys miss people who are not home, but the General Social Survey, funded by the National Science Foundation, has a high response rate and conducts detailed face-to-face interviews, in which respondents are pressed to confirm they mean what they say.

Whereas nearly three-quarters of people in 1985 reported they had a friend in whom they could confide, only half in 2004 said they could count on such support. The number of people who said they counted a neighbor as a confidant dropped by more than half, from about 19 percent to about 8 percent.

The results, being published today in the American Sociological Review, took researchers by surprise because they had not expected to see such a steep decline in close social ties.

Smith-Lovin said increased professional responsibilities, including working two or more jobs to make ends meet, and long commutes leave many people too exhausted to seek social -- as well as family -- connections: "Maybe sitting around watching 'Desperate Housewives' . . . is what counts for family interaction."

Television blamed
Robert D. Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard and the author of "Bowling Alone," a book about increasing social isolation in the United States, said the new study supports what he has been saying for years to skeptical audiences in the academy.

"For most of the 20th century, Americans were becoming more connected with family and friends, and there was more giving of blood and money, and all of those trend lines turn sharply in the middle '60s and have gone in the other direction ever since," he said.

Americans go on 60 percent fewer picnics today and families eat dinner together 40 percent less often compared with 1965, he said. They are less likely to meet at clubs or go bowling in groups. Putnam has estimated that every 10-minute increase in commutes makes it 10 percent less likely that people will establish and maintain close social ties.

Television is a big part of the problem, he contends. Whereas 5 percent of U.S. households in 1950 owned television sets, 95 percent did a decade later.

But University of Toronto sociologist Barry Wellman questioned whether the study's focus on intimate ties means that social ties in general are fraying. He said people's overall ties are actually growing, compared with previous decades, thanks in part to the Internet. Wellman has calculated that the average person today has about 250 ties with friends and relatives.

Wellman praised the quality of the new study and said its results are surprising, but he said it does not address how core ties change in the context of other relationships.

"I don't see this as the end of the world but part of a larger puzzle," he said. "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."

Putnam and Smith-Lovin said Americans may be well advised to consciously build more relationships. But they also said social institutions and social-policy makers need to pay more attention.

"The current structure of workplace regulations assumes everyone works from 9 to 5, five days a week," Putnam said. "If we gave people much more flexibility in their work life, they would use that time to spend more time with their aging mom or best friend."

ohflyingone,

Great article. I've been saying for quite some time now how people don't place as vaule in relationships as we once did. How sad.

Things keep up and the 3rd world continues to pore over the borders we will be isolated to the point where we have puts walls around our own homes. We could be living like the people on the border.

It is a good article and true.....unfortunatly.

I noticed it a good 20 yrs. or so ago. That's why I get so ticked when I hear "family values" or "for the sake of the children". Everything was set for the destruction of the family and the children. I know they "passed some token laws" that only a few actually get the access to use in order to make it look like they were trying to support the family. But it didn't trickle down. I always had to be forced to choose between my family and my job. Always had to work holidays. "Company policies" about not being able to leave the grounds at lunch or have a quick bite with a friend. And it got to the point they didn't even allow co-workers to talk too much together and we're not talking romance.....water cooler talk with a same sex person. God forbid you smile or even look like you were enjoying your day. At K-Mart I worked 7 years and barely knew anyones first name let alone their last. You went by numbers. I was 210. I don't think I heard my name spoken for years. N..'s mom...V's mom.....210....and MOMMY! No vacations because they wanted you to take a day here and there so they didn't have to have you gone for a week. And that's after 5 years of employment. And only with advanced approval. No days off from Halloween till mid Jan. NO summer days off at all. No days around Easter and then you had to compete with the ones who were there longer to get it. No paid sick days and you had to have a Dr.'s excuse after 1 day. Whether it be for yourself or your child. Nothing is designed family friendly let alone a social life. They wouldn't even do the scheduals in advance so you could even try and plan anything. I knew work, home and the grocery store and school. I existed to work to exist and that's not condusive to friends or family.

I know I was zoned in and trained to just shut-up and work that it got to the point I didn't know how to act if someone actually tried to have a conversation with me.

Now here I'm warned don't let the kids in that house climb your tree to get their frisby because they'll sue you if they even get a scratch. Don't loan anything to that neighbor coz you'll never see it again. Keep your doors locked even if your home and your car. Don't drive the same way twice and throw off your daily pattern coz there's kids on the next street that will rob you're house. Don't leave your bike in the front yard or you won't see it again.

It's a war zone and for your own safety you shut -up and stay inside. You have to be sceptical of everybody and it never used to be like that. Now we have some guy poisoning the dogs in the neighborhood with meatballs. And this is the environment to meet, greet and be friends?

It is scarey and lonely.

At K-Mart I worked 7 years and barely knew anyones first name let alone their last. You went by numbers. I was 210. I don't think I heard my name spoken for years. N..'s mom...V's mom.....210....and MOMMY! No vacations because they wanted you to take a day here and there so they didn't have to have you gone for a week. And that's after 5 years of employment. And only with advanced approval. No days off from Halloween till mid Jan. NO summer days off at all. No days around Easter and then you had to compete with the ones who were there longer to get it. No paid sick days and you had to have a Dr.'s excuse after 1 day. Whether it be for yourself or your child. Nothing is designed family friendly let alone a social life. They wouldn't even do the scheduals in advance so you could even try and plan anything. I knew work, home and the grocery store and school. I existed to work to exist and that's not condusive to friends or family.

My God, I think people in prison have more freedom than that.

I know working in retail sucks, but .....

Of course, when I was writing software for a living, things were much the same now that I think about it, although the pay was better.

Thats horrible!

If things keep going the way they are, it is going to get that way everywhere!
No one is looking out for the American worker!

It is like that in retail and other lower paying jobs. I lost that job because I finally said NO when they expected me to put my kids in a shelter so I could go and sit in the store while a cat. 5 hurricane was off shore because they needed a K-Mart employee in there to watch out for the illegal cleaning crew. When they pulled that on me I blew. They said I could come back and "discuss" it and there was a pretty good chance I could have my job back.......but needless to say after all the time I worked there and such......I literally told them to stuff it. I certainly wasn't going to beg for that lousy job. They have a way of making you feel you owe your life to them. At first they make you feel so valuable and important and then after awhile you wake up to realize they could care less about you. You are disposable and for your loss there's 100's more waiting to fill your spot and there are. The only ones with smiles on their faces are new people. You can see the rest are stretched thin if you can find them.