Image by Lars van Pouke on Unsplash.
Why Robert Putnam’s famous book says less about loneliness and remote work than many people assume.
“Twenty-six years after Robert Putnam warned that Americans were bowling alone, many of us are now typing alone.”
That’s what a New York Times opinion piece warned us, a piece written by co-authors of an enormous study published in Science. The authors suggest that remote working will lead to increased mental distress, presumably triggered by being alone. Living alone, they say, makes the situation even worse.
Citing a widely read book adds authority to a viewpoint, especially when you join it to a catchy phrase like “typing alone.”
But these authors are making a common mistake: they’re borrowing a famous phrase that can take on a meaning well beyond what their authors originally intended.
I saw this a while back when business storytellers were told to be vulnerable – just like Brene Brown. But Brene Brown never said, “Share your story with customers.” She actually talked about setting boundaries and taking risks.
Similarly, the phrase “bowling alone” has come to symbolize loneliness and personal isolation. But the book is about the decline of social capital: the pool of people you can call on for unpaid help. He argues that social capital used to be created by institutions that brought people together on a regular basis: card playing, churches, family dinners, volunteerism, and, of course bowling leagues.
What the book actually says
“Bowling alone” doesn’t mean that people will literally bowl alone. He’s talking about the loss of bowling leagues where people repeatedly saw each other.
Putnam himself suggests that we can’t look to the face-to-face workplace to generate much social capital. “Most studies of personal networks,” he says, “find that co-workers account for less than 10 percent of our friends. Workplace ties tend to be casual and enjoyable, but not intimate and deeply supportive.”
Gaining social capital isn’t tied to marital status or living alone. In fact, the book says, “married people tend to be homebodies.” Households are more isolated from one another and people living in households tend to spend their time watching television instead of building relationships.
Married people with children are more likely to be involved in church. But marriage and children are “negatively correlated with memberships” in business, professional, and service clubs – established ways to create social capital.
Putting the book in context
Bowling Alone seems to be written about a time of transition in society. Many institutions that generated social capital have declined or disappeared entirely. More people are choosing to remain single and/or live alone. The traditional family – married couple and children – has become a minority. Union membership and card playing are unlikely to make a comeback.
But in the years since cellphones became popular, new ways of connecting have emerged – options that didn’t exist when Putnam wrote the book: coworking spaces, improv drama troupes, book clubs, and more popular fitness centers.
And yes, we’re seeing more remote working. Jobs have changed. The workplace has changed.
Contemporary focus on loneliness
The phrase “bowling alone” has become iconic. But we rarely talk about the book’s underlying premise – the loss of social capital.
Putnam seems to view this decline as negative, but I’m not so sure, For example, we used to need social capital so we could get food when we couldn’t get out; we needed a ride when the car broke down and public transit wasn’t an answer.
But now we can purchase, for very reasonable prices, all kinds of food delivery services and ride shares. A busy friend might easily wonder, “Why don’t they just call Uber or Uber Eats?”
Many of us have experienced enormous changes in the roles and expectations of friends and family. As people get more complex lives, they may no longer be willing or available to be part of someone else’s social capital. To take a familiar but simple example, you may wish for social capital to get a ride home from the hospital when your friends’ families no longer include a non-working spouse.
Perhaps most importantly, the mental distress of living and working alone may be a temporary condition as people learn to make new kinds of social connections that don’t depend on the traditional methods.
We may have simply decided to replace bowling leagues not with bowling alone, but with bowling with others on a mutually convenient schedule. Less catchy but more realistic.
