[cirath]

> The ageing mill towns of East Lancashire, UK, still enjoyed a culture of trust and respect for your neighbours such that you could leave your front door open without fear of theft.

That is a strange line to include there, as I am not sure how people staying inside and having very little social life would erode public trust in the idea that your house won't be robbed while you're away. There are hundreds of factors that play into the changing landscape of trust, but I know my small town parents still have no real concern leaving the door unlocked in their small town of ~1000 or so people.

Personally, I'd say the trust issue has to do with the fact that the world population has almost perfectly doubled since 1969, and humanity's short history has not prepared us for the population explosion that has occurred over the last 150 years. We live closer together than ever before -- but cities have never really been safe, and serial killing predates electricity (oddly) without even getting near to modern technology or us collectively being "blinded by everything shiny".

The issue with our population now is that our cities are larger, there are fewer small towns and rural areas, hence the erosion of trust.

I think Dunbar's Number (colloquially the Monkeysphere) kind of covers why we aren't handling the explosion of social circles well. But that can't be blamed completely on technology.