An interesting review of Robert D. Putnam’s Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, a book which delves into the many problems associated with atomized society in the United States (and, by extension, the West ).
There are a number of reasons for civic disengagement, including work, sprawl, and generational change. But the “single most consistent predictor” for apathy and passivity is television. If you read one chapter in this book, choose Putnam’s chapter on technology and mass media. The realization that the average American watches 4 hours of TV a day is very important when analyzing people’s behavior and habits.
“Nothing else in the twentieth century so rapidly and profoundly affected our leisure,” Putnam continues. “At the very least, television and its electronic cousins are willing accomplices in the civic mystery we have been unraveling, and more likely than not, they are ringleaders.”
In addition to the correlation between television viewing and physical and mental ailments, high viewing rates are also related to materialism, which is rising among college students in accordance with the amount of television they watch. Furthermore, time diaries reveal that husbands and wives “spend 3 or 4 times as much time watching television as they spend talking to each other.” The evidence is clear: turning off the tube would definitely prove a boon for civic engagement.
Loading ...