"Strange Disappearance of Civic America"

Throughout the 1960’s to the 1980’s the amount of time that American people have spent socializing has decreased greatly. There has been a decline in visiting, social groups, clubs, organizations and associations. In Robert Putnam’s essay “Strange Disappearance of Civic America,” he researched the cause for this action. He looked at all the possible factors that may have contributed to this decline and through careful detective work and use of surveys and studies he attempted to find an explanation.

By the end of his paper, Putnam came to the conclusion that television was the main culprit for bringing on the disappearance of civic America. Through research he found studies that American’s watched about four hours of television a day. With television taking up most of an average American’s free time, there is little room left in the day for socializing. Television became ones leisure activity for the day which replaced the need to go out to social gatherings. I completely agree with Putnam’s finding. With the popularity of televisions in the average American home, outside social interaction has been on decline as people are too busy spending their free time sitting at home on their couch with a remote in hand.

Robert Putnam’s essay was written more than a decade ago in 1996 and is quite outdated. I would be interested to see current study done about the social interaction done outside the home and have it compared to numbers in the 1990’s. I believe that the numbers would have decreased much more. In the past decade not only the television has had an important role in the average American’s home but the computer and internet have also been introduced. With the wide spread availability of the internet over the last decade, I would be interested to see the amount of time spent on the computer compared to the amount of time watching television. I would not be surprised if the computer was much greater. The internet has brought communication, entertainment and work all together in one place. Not only adults, but especially teens and even young children take advantage of the computer for games, email, word processing, or just surfing the web.

With the great advancements of technology people are less likely to leave home to spend their free time in clubs or social organizations. Through the internet you can join forums of any kind to socialize and are able to attend at your own convenience. With the busy life of an American, the leisure time in ones day is constantly diminishing, and the convenience and endless opportunities of the internet are replacing the need to leave the home to socialize.

Robert Putnam found through his research done in 1996 that since the 1960’s television was the major reason for the disappearance of Civic America. Television was only the start of the technology wave being brought into an average American’s home. With the introduction of computers and the internet, American’s have become even more disengaged from community activities.