Social networks didn’t just reduce suffering, they offered avenues for finding meaning and purpose (as Durkheim concluded from his studies of suicide).42 For example, the widely shared adversity of the Great Depression offered many young people the chance to make a real contribution to their families by finding a job that brought in a few dollars a week. The need for people to pull together within their nations to fight World War II appears to have made those who lived through it more responsible and civic minded, at least in the United States, even if they played no direct role in the war
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