[Lagged2Death]

People have been moaning about how we're all becoming socially isolated since the publication of the first novel. The art of socialising has been declared dying ever since the first VHS was available to buy and watch at home.

You're not offering anything more than an assertion that they're wrong, though. That is, you're using the same anecdata standard of evidence that they are: "My friends and I have cell phones but we talk to each other..."

More serious thinkers than you and I have made actual measurements that show our frequency of in-person, in-public type socializing and civic engagement really has been in long-term decline for many decades. VHS would be one of the culprits, yes, and now so would smart-phones, tablets, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone

[graeme]

Good point. I just finished a social history of Montreal in the 40's and 50's. TV had a lot to do with the closing down of cabarets and theatres.

You didn't have to go out for entertainment anymore. But the latter is inherently more social than TV.

[thenonsequitur]

Some of what Putnam reported was flawed, and his book that you cited was interpretative. These "actual mesasurements" that you speak of do not show that in-person social engagement has been in decline -- that is Putnam's interpretation of the data. Others have different interpretations (which I happen to agree with much more). For example, see http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/96apr/kicking/ki....

[GHFigs]

See also Sherry Turkle[1], Nicholas Carr[2], etc.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Alone-Together-Expect-Technology-Other... [2] http://www.amazon.com/Shallows-What-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp...