Bowling Alone

An influential piece of sociological analysis, Robert Putnam's short article inspired a wave of reactions for and against his points. Essentially, Dr. Putnam contends that Americans have stopped being invested in "traditional" community organizations, and without these groups, the fabric of fraternity (brotherhood in an abstract American sense) has begun to fray among US citizens. The eponymous trope in this article is bowling in which Putnam explains that more people are bowling than in previous years, but less are bowling in organized leagues or groups. Perhaps the most important critique of Putnam's anti-community assessment comes from the wave of social networking platforms that emerged in the second decade of the internet.