Connection Culture by Michael Lee Stallard

Author:Michael Lee Stallard
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781607284994
Publisher: ATD Press
Published: 2015-04-29T14:00:00+00:00

THE CURRENT STATE OF CONNECTION

Much has been written about the current state of connection, including Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone, David Myers’ American Paradox, Robert Lane’s The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies, and, more recently, Jacqueline Olds and Richard Schwartz’s The Lonely American. These works present compelling evidence that a broad decline in connection and community has been occurring since the post–World War II economic boom, which has contributed to a decline in both mental and physical health and life expectancy.

Thanks to modern technology and the increased pace of the modern business world, many people have less time to connect at home because they are spending more time at work or monitoring work from home via mobile devices. Some families, nuclear or extended, have chosen to spread out geographically to pursue economic opportunities, which results in less time spent connecting. Longer commute times also affect the amount of time available for connecting.

In addition to, or perhaps even because of, increased pressures at work, people are becoming more disconnected with their peers. Between 1985 and 2004, the number of Americans who said they had not discussed “important matters” with a friend during the prior six months tripled to nearly 25 percent of those surveyed. With fewer friends to confide in, Americans are turning to paid confidants—in 1950 Americans had a combined 33,000 paid confidants (including clinical psychologists, social workers, and therapists); by 2010 that number was estimated to be 1,091,000. However, most coaching is done for economic gain rather than personal growth and development (Marche 2012; Morris 2014).

In Western nations, physicians and nurses speak about an epidemic of loneliness, which could be due, at least in part, to increasing numbers of single-person households. In 1950, less than 10 percent of American households contained only one individual; by 2010 that number had nearly tripled to 27 percent, the highest in U.S. history (Marche 2012). From 2000 to 2010, the number of American adults over 45 who identified as being chronically lonely rose from 20 percent to 35 percent (Anderson 2010).

Other factors that may also contribute to declining connection include historically high divorce rates (which have recently been on the decline due to lower marriage rates), more two-parent working families, lower participation in community organizations including faith-based communities, higher layoffs and employee turnover, a productivity push in workplaces that has squeezed out time for people to connect in the office, and increased media use (television, online, mobile devices, gaming) that crowds out time previously spent connecting face-to-face.

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