Back in 2000, Harvard professor and political scientist Robert Putnam published Bowling Alone, about the decline of American civil society. Putnam’s diagnosis was that Americans were engaging less and less with their communities and this was damaging American society as a whole. Americans were far less likely to participate in volunteer work, go to church, know their neighbors, invite friends home, go to bars, join unions, or just spend time hanging out with friends (and their cats).
