The American Prospect, Winter 1996. Putnam, using data from the General Social Survey and other sources, claims that social capital and civic engagement have diminished significantly in recent decades.
Civic engagement refers to people s connections with the life of their communities.
Putnam says that education boosts civic engagement but overall it has dropped in spite of rising educational levels. He finds TV to be, perhaps, the major culprit - each hour spent viewing television is associated with less social trust and less group membership. In contrast, each hour reading a newspaper is associated with more. See p. 285. Time Bombs pp.