The author of the seminal book about loneliness explains what we’re getting wrong

With the holiday season upon us, it’s important to grapple with the loneliness many Americans face every day. It’s often more intensely felt in the times when you are expected to be surrounded by the warm embrace of family and friends. And, increasingly, that warm embrace isn’t happening. Americans spend more time at home — alone — than they did 20 years ago, according to a recent analysis of federal data. The numbers went up dramatically during the pandemic and never came back down. 

Across the board, Americans have fallen away from activities that involve or require community. Religious service attendance is down dramatically. Two decades ago, over 40 percent of US adults attended religious services every week or nearly every week. Now, just 30 percent of Americans say the same, according to Gallup polling. Other metrics of civic engagement have dropped off too: According to one AmeriCorps study, just 20 percent of Gen Z volunteer their time to help others, compared to almost 30 percent of Gen X. 

Loneliness has been on the steady march for many decades, and one man has been watching its advance: Robert Putnam, a public policy professor at Harvard University and the author of 15 books, including the 2001 bestseller Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. The book was based on a simple premise: Once, Americans joined bowling leagues. Now, they are going bowling by themselves. In the book, Putnam extends the metaphor to speak to all our social connections, saying that their drop-off speaks to the decline of our democracy. 

This half-century of civic decline is charted in a documentary about Putnam’s life that came out in 2023, called Join or Die. We wanted to hear more about the importance of a culture that embraces community activities, so we reached out to the man who inspired a thousand clubs himself. Noel King spoke with Putnam — though he prefers to be called Bob — for Today, Explained to discuss if “bowling alone” has grown even more acute, the role technology plays, and how to reverse the trend. Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.

Noel King

Volunteering is good for the person who is doing the volunteering, right? Is that a reason to volunteer?

Robert Putnam

There’s a lot of evidence that if you’re volunteering to help somebody else, you’re probably getting more benefits out of it than they are, because there are all sorts of physiological changes. People after volunteering are happier than if you hadn’t volunteered. It’s one reason to volunteer. You don’t have to choose between the reasons. In writing the book Bowling Alone, I talked about the consequences of our connections with other people, both our actual in-person connections and our connections through political organizations. And that, as a community in which people are more connected with one another, the whole community functions better, not just the two people involved in a given exchange. 

Let me give an example from education. If I, as a parent, get involved in my child’s school, I join the PTA or I volunteer in the classroom, that turns out to be good for my child. But the astonishing thing is my getting involved has even more effect on the success and the happiness of other kids in the school. In the book Bowling Alone, which was written [about] 25 years ago, I talked about the decline in these connections, decline in what I called social capital. And I said, “Gosh, if this continues, it’s going to be bad for American democracy. You know, we’re going to have more polarized politics,” and so on. And the reason that there’s now a little bit of a new wave of interest in my work is that I turned out to be right. Even more right than I thought. If you’ve not noticed, American politics is in a pickle right now, and the fundamental reason for that is because for the last 30 or 40 years, we as a country have become less and less connected with one another — in my jargon, with less and less social capital. 

Noel King

Does the data bear it out? Because it feels like we’re more isolated now, and it felt that way when you wrote Bowling Alone 25 years ago. Is it true?

Robert Putnam

Yes. Once upon a time there was a debate, there was a thought that maybe we don’t actually have to be in somebody’s presence. That we could see them on Zoom or social media would be just as good as actual social connections. For quite a while, the evidence has been that Facebook is not as good as bowling leagues. That is, you don’t get the same benefit from connecting with people via social media as you do from actually connecting with them face to face. That’s what the evidence has shown. I can tell you when public opinion on that changed. It was just about November 25th of 2020, at the height of the pandemic, and everybody in America realized that hugging Grandma was not the same thing as actually seeing Grandma over Zoom. And it isn’t.

Noel King

People who might otherwise not leave the house very much join Reddit communities; people have WhatsApp chat groups with their relatives in other countries. I text my 14-year-old niece, who I don’t get to see very often. I hear you saying the technology has not been good for us and I want to make sure that we’re sure about that.

Robert Putnam

I’m not saying that electronic connections are of no use to us. I’ve got lots of grandchildren and I’m texting with them or emailing with them literally every day. I’m not saying that social media or other forms of electronic connection are literally no good, I am saying they’re not as good as face-to-face ties.

Noel King

So if, currently, we’re at a low point for social connection, what brought us here?

Robert Putnam

In the beginning of the 20th century, around about 1900, America was very polarized politically. Our politics were tribal. We were very unequal. There was economically a big gap between the rich, who were living on the Upper East Side of New York, and the huddled masses, the poor immigrants on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. We were very socially disconnected. We’d had connections back on the farm, where we knew other people, whether the farm was in Iowa or in southern Italy, but we’d all moved. There had been a huge movement from the rural areas to the cities, and we did not know our new neighbors, and so we were very socially isolated. And actually, we were culturally very self-centered. We were an “I society” rather than a “we society.” We didn’t think of ourselves as having a lot in common. And then beginning about 1910 — none of these things are super exact — but about 1910, all of those things began to change and they moved in a different, better direction for a half-century or more. So from roughly 1910 to roughly 1965 or 1970, every year we became less polarized politically, less socially isolated, less unequal, or more equal, and more of a “we” society. 

So we went from being an “I” society around 1900 to being a “we” society around, roughly speaking, 1965. The movements of the 1960s — which you no doubt you don’t remember, [but] I do remember that period — that was the culmination of a half-century long increase in political participation, increase in connecting with other people, increase in cooperation across party lines, increase in equality. And I have to say, this is just about the time when I personally began to vote. So you may think I personally brought these problems on America in the middle ’60s. All those lines turned and for the next half-century, up to now, every year we got more socially isolated, more politically disconnected, more unequal. We lost it all.

Noel King

Could it work to sell joining clubs, volunteering, in-person engagement as, “This will make you feel good, I promise”? And the side effect is that it’s good for society, it’s good for democracy — but if you’re going to do it, do it for yourself? Think of it as a kind of self-care.

Robert Putnam

The danger to your life expectancy from social isolation is as big a risk factor for premature death as smoking. If you did smoke and you had a choice, should you smoke? Or should you join a club? By all means, join the club! There are huge personal benefits from connecting with other people, including joining. The most important reason is actually that you should connect with other people. You will add years to your life expectancy.

Noel King

You’re going to live longer. And also you’re going to save American society.

Robert Putnam

By the way, you’re also going to save American democracy. That’s right.