{"id":764,"date":"2006-07-18T14:42:20","date_gmt":"2006-07-18T14:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/?p=764"},"modified":"2006-07-18T14:42:20","modified_gmt":"2006-07-18T14:42:20","slug":"modern_friendships_and_isolati","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/?p=764","title":{"rendered":"Modern Friendships and Isolation"},"content":{"rendered":"

A good piece in the New York Times<\/a>. I talk often about the contribution of technology and busyness to hyper-individualism and the growing isolation of people in our society. Here is a contribution to the growing social debate; a debate which I think has great significance for the Church. Hat-tip to Titus1:9<\/a>
\nJuly 16, 2006
\nThe Way We Live Now:
\nConfidant Crisis<\/strong>
\nBy ANN HULBERT<\/p>\n

By now, I bet almost everybody knows somebody who has joined a social networking Web site like MySpace.com, with more than 90 million members, or Facebook.com, a college-based Web site that has become a high-school favorite, too. That means most people probably also know that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153friend\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is no longer just a noun, but a verb, one that entails minimal exertion: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to friend\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a person involves an exchange of mouse clicks, one to request a spot on someone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s (often very lengthy) list of people granted access to his or her online profile, and a click in response to accept the petitioner. If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re too old and busy to be logging on obsessively to this Internet social scene, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re doubtless enmeshed in your own way, e-mailing far-flung acquaintances or anticipating the spread of free Internet telephone service.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\nAmericans, in other words, aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly suffering from anomie. If anything, a surfeit of connectivity is the curse of the moment. (Take a trip in a nonquiet Amtrak car if you want vivid evidence.) No wonder a recent study, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks Over Two Decades,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d published in the latest American Sociological Review, made it into the headlines and onto \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Good Morning America.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Here was surprising news that touched a nerve. Who would have guessed, in our gabby tell-all culture, that people interviewed in the 2004 General Social Survey would report an average of only two \u00e2\u20ac\u0153core\u00e2\u20ac\u009d confidants with whom they \u00e2\u20ac\u0153discuss important matters,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d down from the mean of three close ties elicited by the same question in 1985? Just as startling, given an ever more interwoven world, was the decline in the percentage of Americans \u00e2\u20ac\u201d to 57 percent from 80 percent \u00e2\u20ac\u201d who named at least one non-kin person as part of this inner circle.
\nThe media, predictably enough, were spooked by the specter of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153social isolation\u00e2\u20ac\u009d: though we may bowl alone, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re always ready to join a chorus of concern about fraying communities. But before rushing to conclude that Americans have simply gotten lonelier and more insular, why not consider another possibility? Perhaps, as the study\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s authors themselves hint at one point, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve also gotten better at demarcating what constitutes truly intimate communing \u00e2\u20ac\u201d expecting more of our confidants, we have, in effect, defined intimacy up. That is not exactly what you would expect in an era of constant communicating. Yet could it be precisely because we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re more plugged in to a disparate array of people who supply us with information when we need it, offer advice and keep us intermittent company, that our standard of genuine closeness has become more exacting? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not just that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re too busy for more than a select few confidants. We may be choosier too.
\nLook at Aristotle\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Nicomachean Ethics,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or at junior-high-school cliques, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear that discriminating among degrees of friendship can be a daunting task. The most tenacious of taxonomists, Aristotle thought pleasure and utility counted for less than the rare commingling of virtuous character as the basis for friendship. Centuries of varying ideals and fears ensued. Are our close ties becoming shallower and more instrumental? How many are too many, and what is enough? Is friendship a matter of spontaneous sincerity, heartfelt reciprocity, mutual understanding, deep loyalty, moral obligation or shared passion \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and can it last? In his new book, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Friendship: An Expos\u00c3\u00a9,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Joseph Epstein quotes the German sociologist Georg Simmel already worrying a century ago that we moderns are destined to drift among \u00e2\u20ac\u0153differentiated friendships,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d missing out on an all-encompassing connection.
\nTurn from philosophizers to recent empirical surveys, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear the challenge of categorizing confidants remains as complex as ever. In January, just five months before the General Social Survey appeared, a phone survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project set out to assess the impact of Web involvement on real-world social networks. The study emerged with a notably big figure for what it termed \u00e2\u20ac\u0153core ties\u00e2\u20ac\u009d: a median number of 15 people with whom respondents said they had discussed important matters, with whom they were in frequent touch or from whom they got substantial help. Here was a three-pronged conception of core ties that roped in friendships across the Aristotelian spectrum, from the useful to the pleasurable and beyond, rather than distilling out just soul mates. Add in the median number of 16 weaker yet still \u00e2\u20ac\u0153significant ties\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that the Pew survey also counted, and the findings left Americans looking anything but socially isolated.
\nAnd now consider the fact that the General Social Survey finds that on average, individuals have only two close confidants. As we puzzle over what the decline means, perhaps we should be reassured that Americans seem clear-eyed about their connections. The study\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s low figures may be stark testament that we value a deep bond when we find it and aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fooled when we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. When one-dimensional, functional relationships are ever more accessible, the desire to be known and to know another from all sides and from inside out may be lodged even deeper \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and may thrive closer to home. A century ago, another philosopher surveying a modernizing world, George Santayana, had already concluded that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the tie that in contemporary society most nearly resembles the ancient ideal of friendship is a well-assorted marriage.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The General Social Survey data suggest an inner core that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t oppressively clannish but invites rising equality and diversity, narrow though it is. The percentage of people who include a spouse in their circle of closest confidants went from 30 percent in 1985 to almost 40 percent two decades later. And in 2004, 15 percent reported at least one confidant of another race, up from 9 percent in 1985. While to friend has become a frivolous verb, to bond might prove to be one that Americans are taking, if anything, more to heart than ever.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ann Hulbert, a contributing writer, is the author of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Raising America: Experts, Parents and a Century of Advice About Children.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A good piece in the New York Times. I talk often about the contribution of technology and busyness to hyper-individualism and the growing isolation of people in our society. Here is a contribution to the growing social debate; a debate … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politicsculture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}