Through this and other writings, he has argued that during the past 30 years, Americans in all sectors of society have become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and social and political institutions. The extent of this social disconnection is indicated through several trends in American society, Putnam argued, such as declining church attendance and falling membership in parent-teacher associations, labor unions, the Boy Scouts, American Red Cross, and civic groups such as the Elks. Americans entertain friends at home, visit with friends, and have dinner with their families far less often than they did a generation ago. You may tell your kids 'Hey, I remember when families actually ate dinner together'. Social disconnection, Putnam said, is having profound consequences for the quality of life for Americans, both individually and collectively.
Crime tends to be lower where people know one another and interact more often.
Yet growing social disconnection is not a recent phenomenon in this country, he said, pointing out that the same thing was true 100 years ago. The United States of the early 1900s was undergoing unprecedented changes because of the Industrial Revolution, immigration and urbanization. The consequences of this era of social invention formed the backbone of American civic culture through the 1960s. Now, as a century ago, the solutions to American social disconnection won't come from academia, but from the public, Putnam said. Over the next 10 to 15 years, we in America have to find new ways of connection.