Following publication of Bowling Alone, several of Putnam’s critics embarked on their own research, looking to either counter or confirm Putnam’s claims. In 2011, they found significant decreases in both familial and nonfamilial networks—but nonfamilial most of all. “Americans’ social networks are collapsing inward,” Putnam wrote in his 2015 follow-up, Our Kids, “and now consist of fewer, denser, more homogenous, more familiar (and less nonkin) ties.”
