Popular in Sociology

Culture and Society

The City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place

New York University Harvey Moltoch

Culture and Society

Carceral Entrapments: Views from the Prison/Street Interface in India

Indian Institute of Technology Delhi Mahuya Bandyopadhya

Culture and Society

Pre-problem families: predictive analytics and the future as the present

University of Southampton Rosalind Edwards

Ethnicity and Racism

Were Muslim Barbarians Really Knocking On the Gates of Ontario?

University of Ottawa Natasha Bakht

Culture and Society

Poor People’s Survival Strategies

The University of Texas at Austin Javier Auyero

Ethnicity and Racism

Sociology of Whiteness

Arizona State University Monica McDermott

Ethnicity and Racism

Narratives of Harm and the case for detention abolition

Queen's University Sharry Aiken

Forms of Group Involvement: Alternatives to the Standard Question

View more insights in Social Sciences - Sociology - Culture and Society

View more figures from University of California Berkeley

View the page of Claude Fischer

Read the Blog

Does the standard question about the associations to which respondents belong, asked for decades by the General Social Survey (GSS) and many others, miss newer and more diverse forms of group involvement? Claude Fischer discusses group associations in America.

Photo Credit: Raymond Holbert

Image courtesy of interviewee. May 23, 2024

Generating Workspace

Export as PDF

This video video discusses the long-standing debate in the United States about the decline of American involvement in social groups, particularly following the publication of Robert Putnam's influential book, "Bowling Alone," which argued that associational life has declined. Critics have pointed out methodological issues in measuring participation in traditional formal organizations.

The author introduces a new survey conducted in the San Francisco Bay Area, focusing on understanding social involvement through a broader lens that includes informal groups and diverse forms of participation beyond formal organizations. This video video survey examined young (21-30) and older (50-70) populations, asking about personal relationships, group activities, and informal social networks.

Key findings suggest that while traditional forms of association may have declined, there is a significant increase in diverse, informal social involvements, with many people participating in various social groups outside formal structures. The study challenges the notion that Americans are "bowling alone" and instead suggests a reorganization of social life characterized by more informal and self-selected associations.

Looking to the future, the author emphasizes the importance of adapting research methods to capture evolving social forms and recommends a nuanced understanding of historical trends in American sociability, suggesting that the nature of group life will continue to shift, potentially becoming more focused on informal and transient associations.

Language:

Export as PDF

X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

00:00.000 --> 00:02.605
There's been a long debate in the United States about the

00:02.765 --> 00:06.605
question of Americans involvement in, group life.

00:07.225 --> 00:10.045
And, the, the concern has been that,

00:10.765 --> 00:14.805
Americans are increasingly, unable to form

00:14.905 --> 00:18.045
and, act, participate in social groups.

00:18.385 --> 00:20.045
The most dramatic part

00:20.045 --> 00:22.885
of this storyline was a publication in 2000

00:23.265 --> 00:25.085
of a book entitled Bowling Alone

00:26.145 --> 00:28.205
by the political scientist Robert Putnam.

00:28.625 --> 00:31.165
And, a very interesting book, very complex,

00:31.425 --> 00:34.005
but a major through line in the book is the argument that

00:34.555 --> 00:38.445
associational life and the United States is in decline.

00:38.705 --> 00:42.845
Um, when put an asterisk on it, associational life

00:43.465 --> 00:45.565
has been historically associated with

00:46.085 --> 00:47.325
Americans in the classic work

00:47.325 --> 00:49.845
of the Tocqueville on democracy in America.

00:50.945 --> 00:52.125
So that was the background.

00:52.465 --> 00:54.165
Uh, sort of the conceptual

00:54.185 --> 00:57.405
or theoretical issue is, what is happening

00:57.405 --> 01:01.005
to Americans participation in social life way We've tried

01:01.005 --> 01:05.685
to understand, membership participation in organizations

01:05.705 --> 01:08.605
and associations is through a very standard question

01:08.605 --> 01:10.845
that was developed in the 1950s and 1960s.

01:11.745 --> 01:14.925
And because it's been measured repeatedly in surveys over

01:15.045 --> 01:18.165
the decades, it becomes the standard by which people try

01:18.165 --> 01:20.925
to assess what's happened to American participation.

01:21.505 --> 01:25.535
And this standard question presents the respondent

01:25.535 --> 01:29.135
with a list of types of organizations, veterans, group,

01:29.285 --> 01:33.975
farm clubs, hobby associations, professional clubs, unions,

01:34.415 --> 01:36.655
veterans, and so forth, about 17 different types.

01:37.875 --> 01:40.775
And they responded, has asked, well, how many

01:40.775 --> 01:42.415
of these types do you belong to?

01:43.255 --> 01:45.715
And the answer to that has been tracked over time.

01:46.015 --> 01:48.475
And the gross answer is, there's been a decline

01:48.775 --> 01:52.595
or apparent decline in the involvement.

01:54.015 --> 01:57.115
Now, that has fueled a lot of the argument

01:57.145 --> 02:00.355
that Americans have been losing their associational life,

02:00.495 --> 02:03.435
and they're becoming increasingly people

02:03.535 --> 02:07.075
who quote unquote bowl alone as opposed to bowling in teams.

02:08.455 --> 02:10.995
Uh, that was the metaphor, very catching metaphor

02:11.195 --> 02:12.355
that Robert Putnam used.

02:13.385 --> 02:16.475
Critics of the argument have focused on this methodological

02:16.565 --> 02:20.355
issue of how do you know how people are participating

02:20.355 --> 02:22.075
or how much people are participating?

02:22.425 --> 02:25.435
They're focused on this question for a couple of reasons.

02:26.055 --> 02:30.395
One is it presents essentially formal organizations

02:30.815 --> 02:33.995
as the way people participate in associational life.

02:34.575 --> 02:37.915
And also it has a list of organizational types that

02:38.615 --> 02:42.555
as the decades passed seems to be increasingly out of date.

02:43.055 --> 02:45.875
So, for example, Americans are asked whether they belong

02:45.875 --> 02:47.475
to a farm organization.

02:48.105 --> 02:49.515
Very few Americans are farmers,

02:50.015 --> 02:52.235
but they're not asked in the standard question whether they

02:52.455 --> 02:53.755
belong to any online

02:54.655 --> 02:59.075
or web associations, groups, chat links and so forth.

03:00.025 --> 03:02.005
Um, so that's been the critique.

03:02.505 --> 03:05.885
And, that was the issue I addressed in the paper

03:05.935 --> 03:07.365
under consideration here.

03:07.715 --> 03:11.445
What I think we brought to the topic was a survey,

03:11.655 --> 03:13.725
which allowed us to look at the way people

03:14.235 --> 03:17.485
were involved in associations in a variety of ways,

03:18.385 --> 03:22.165
not just this standard, checklist formation.

03:23.145 --> 03:26.005
The survey itself, is a survey

03:26.625 --> 03:30.445
of people in the San Francisco Bay area, about, 1100

03:30.505 --> 03:35.045
of them in two groups, young people, 21 to 30 years old,

03:35.665 --> 03:39.165
and older people, 50 to 70 years old, for reasons

03:39.165 --> 03:40.685
that are not relevant right now.

03:41.705 --> 03:45.325
And, we inter we surveyed these people,

03:45.625 --> 03:49.205
in the study, which is called uc, nets, uc for University

03:49.205 --> 03:51.165
of California Nets for Network Study.

03:52.405 --> 03:55.405
uc Nets surveyed them largely, most

03:55.405 --> 03:57.805
of the survey was about their personal relationships,

03:58.025 --> 04:00.125
who they were involved with, who they spent time with,

04:00.225 --> 04:02.125
who they discussed personal problems with,

04:02.825 --> 04:05.085
who they could rely on an emergency and so forth.

04:05.345 --> 04:07.125
But we did ask some questions that tried

04:07.125 --> 04:09.285
to get a group life, and we tried

04:09.285 --> 04:13.645
to do it in a different way, that allowed people to

04:14.315 --> 04:16.765
tell us about what their social lives were like.

04:17.345 --> 04:20.765
Uh, outside of the constraints of that standard question

04:20.765 --> 04:23.805
that's been used for decades to measure this,

04:24.205 --> 04:26.565
phenomenon, quite one is we used the question was,

04:26.695 --> 04:28.725
which was somewhat similar to the standard question,

04:29.685 --> 04:32.245
simplified a little, but still, here's a checklist

04:32.425 --> 04:33.805
of types of organizations.

04:34.495 --> 04:36.805
Which of these are you active in?

04:37.505 --> 04:38.885
Uh, we then follow up

04:38.885 --> 04:40.165
with a question about whether they were,

04:40.165 --> 04:43.965
people were involved in informal groups like book clubs,

04:44.225 --> 04:45.765
hiking groups, something like that.

04:46.625 --> 04:48.525
We also asked them, to

04:49.755 --> 04:52.445
volunteer other organizations they might belong to.

04:53.505 --> 04:58.325
Um, and another thing we did was to ask,

04:58.355 --> 05:01.005
when people told us about their personal relationships,

05:01.155 --> 05:03.685
they would list and respond to these questions about

05:03.685 --> 05:04.885
who you do this or that with.

05:05.315 --> 05:09.165
They would list names, they would, Sam, bill Jane, so forth.

05:09.865 --> 05:12.725
And we would ask about Sam, bill, Jane, and so on.

05:12.865 --> 05:14.965
And one of the questions was, how did,

05:14.965 --> 05:16.285
what ways do you know this person?

05:17.345 --> 05:19.445
And the respondents were given an option

05:19.445 --> 05:22.565
of answering questions, like, questions like, like that

05:22.635 --> 05:24.605
with answers such as,

05:24.605 --> 05:27.165
we're in the choir together at church, or,

05:27.865 --> 05:30.885
or we meet, every Thursday for Tai Chi,

05:31.305 --> 05:32.525
or something like that.

05:34.175 --> 05:36.835
The promise of this methodology, we thought, was

05:36.835 --> 05:41.195
that it really allowed us to take a look at

05:42.255 --> 05:45.675
the variety of ways people are involved with one another.

05:46.265 --> 05:48.755
Very diverse ways that,

05:49.295 --> 05:52.555
we given our own social positions might not

05:52.605 --> 05:54.515
anticipate kinds of things.

05:54.755 --> 05:56.625
I mean, none

05:56.625 --> 05:58.385
of us involved in the project were motorcycle

05:58.415 --> 05:59.665
bike riders, for example.

06:00.165 --> 06:01.665
But that was cer that was one

06:01.665 --> 06:02.785
of the groups that was mentioned.

06:03.605 --> 06:07.265
And, I think in the end, the punchline

06:07.325 --> 06:11.065
of the study is that we uncovered a wide variety,

06:11.345 --> 06:16.145
a diverse variety of social involvements that people had at,

06:16.205 --> 06:17.265
at, on a group basis.

06:17.445 --> 06:20.585
Not just a diadic one-on-one basis,

06:20.605 --> 06:23.865
but on a group basis, which one is we've discovered

06:24.325 --> 06:25.865
or rediscovered.

06:25.865 --> 06:27.745
And we're not the only researchers in this area,

06:27.925 --> 06:31.985
but I think we have contributed a picture of a variety

06:32.085 --> 06:34.945
of kinds of ways people are involved in groups.

06:35.725 --> 06:39.145
Um, I've mentioned a couple hiking groups,

06:40.265 --> 06:42.305
religious groups of that are not formally

06:42.825 --> 06:43.865
religious in a sense

06:43.865 --> 06:45.785
of having a church building and a minister.

06:46.485 --> 06:49.825
Uh, people's activity, volunteer activities such

06:49.825 --> 06:52.145
as being a docent at a museum

06:53.305 --> 06:55.865
or volunteering weekly,

06:56.845 --> 06:59.625
to help out children in a homeless shelter, for example.

07:00.525 --> 07:02.505
Uh, they are things that people do.

07:03.335 --> 07:04.705
Some people do these individually.

07:04.765 --> 07:06.505
But the striking thing for us was the extent

07:06.505 --> 07:09.465
to which we can identify the way people did this as groups.

07:10.845 --> 07:12.425
Now, the feature

07:12.445 --> 07:14.985
that's very critical here is the informality

07:16.155 --> 07:18.015
and the unstructured, in some ways

07:18.785 --> 07:21.135
unins institutionalized form of these associations.

07:21.835 --> 07:24.655
The standard question very much relied on the image

07:24.795 --> 07:26.095
of formal organizations.

07:26.235 --> 07:27.815
You join, you get a membership card.

07:27.815 --> 07:29.095
There are weekly meetings.

07:29.305 --> 07:32.615
There are, there are elected presidents and vice presidents.

07:33.195 --> 07:35.095
Uh, there's all sorts of forms.

07:35.435 --> 07:36.935
Uh, and, and,

07:37.395 --> 07:40.015
and there are, it was a classic era in America where many

07:40.015 --> 07:42.015
of these kinds of associations were very popular.

07:42.795 --> 07:44.415
The fraternal orders,

07:44.415 --> 07:46.535
I don't know if they have similar things they probably do in

07:46.535 --> 07:49.935
Britain, but the order of the Elks, the order of the moose,

07:50.035 --> 07:51.495
the order of the Eastern Star.

07:52.075 --> 07:53.815
Now these have totally gone out of fashion.

07:54.855 --> 07:57.275
Uh, but to assume that they've gone outta fashion means

07:57.275 --> 07:58.595
that people are not getting together.

07:59.055 --> 08:00.635
That's the slip in the logic.

08:01.135 --> 08:03.595
And so the first set of findings in our study,

08:03.715 --> 08:05.635
I think is just to describe the diversity.

08:06.415 --> 08:08.075
And when you, when you

08:08.805 --> 08:12.275
count up the different ways the individual respondents in

08:12.275 --> 08:15.275
our survey describe their social involvements,

08:15.275 --> 08:18.495
their group involvements, the proportion

08:18.495 --> 08:21.215
who you would say are involved in at least some kind

08:21.215 --> 08:24.695
of social group increases substantially from

08:25.325 --> 08:27.655
roughly half to roughly two thirds.

08:28.165 --> 08:29.415
Once you start to include,

08:29.525 --> 08:32.255
include things like the weekly sports game

08:32.315 --> 08:35.495
that's nobody has uniforms and nobody pays dues,

08:35.555 --> 08:37.615
but everybody gets together, they see each other.

08:38.205 --> 08:40.895
It's a social time as well as a athletic time.

08:41.245 --> 08:43.815
Once you start to count those kinds of groups, the,

08:44.205 --> 08:47.375
just the volume of membership increases.

08:47.675 --> 08:51.015
Um, and as I said, the variety increases.

08:52.195 --> 08:55.015
Now the second part of the question is essentially

08:55.085 --> 08:58.845
what you asked before, which is what does this imply

08:59.105 --> 09:03.725
for the big research question of historical trends?

09:04.745 --> 09:07.445
And of course, our survey was just a snapshot in time

09:08.465 --> 09:12.045
and, we would have to replicate it, later on

09:12.065 --> 09:14.445
and on to see what the trend lines are.

09:14.905 --> 09:16.685
But I was also able in this study,

09:17.455 --> 09:19.955
to take a look at a handful of other surveys

09:20.065 --> 09:22.555
that were comparable that,

09:23.425 --> 09:26.875
cast some light on this associational membership going back

09:26.875 --> 09:29.915
to the 1960s into the 2010s.

09:31.015 --> 09:32.435
And if you line them up

09:32.895 --> 09:37.885
and you use a more liberal, open, diverse sense of

09:37.885 --> 09:42.125
what group life is, the conclusion is

09:42.555 --> 09:46.525
that there's probably not been a secular trend down

09:47.065 --> 09:48.325
toward bowling alone.

09:48.955 --> 09:53.745
What there has been is a diversification

09:54.205 --> 09:55.385
and to use a term

09:55.385 --> 09:58.105
that appears in the social science literature in

09:58.105 --> 10:02.225
formalization of a lot of this social activity.

10:03.445 --> 10:07.165
And I think it fits well, I think with other things we know,

10:07.255 --> 10:10.445
other things I've written about social life in America,

10:11.385 --> 10:15.645
for example, to take a, somewhere of a step set aside.

10:16.135 --> 10:17.445
There does seem to have been,

10:17.445 --> 10:19.645
and this was one of the things de described in Robert

10:19.725 --> 10:23.245
Putney's Bowling Alone, a decline in formal entertaining

10:23.465 --> 10:25.045
and dining in people's homes.

10:26.405 --> 10:29.285
Americans just don't have dinners with people over

10:29.665 --> 10:30.925
as often as they used to.

10:31.835 --> 10:35.215
On the other hand, there's been an increase in the number

10:35.215 --> 10:38.775
of times people see their friends socially out of doors,

10:39.245 --> 10:42.655
outside at cafes, restaurants, and social events.

10:43.675 --> 10:47.845
And so I think the bigger story is not a decline in American

10:47.955 --> 10:51.165
sociability, but a reorganization.

10:51.665 --> 10:53.565
And as I said, a more informal,

10:54.595 --> 10:59.165
more perhaps individually chosen form of sociability.

10:59.745 --> 11:02.645
And so we have suggestions for how,

11:03.665 --> 11:07.205
future research on the question of associational life ought

11:07.205 --> 11:08.445
to be designed.

11:08.785 --> 11:11.085
And, we make some practical suggestions about how

11:11.085 --> 11:13.165
to ask the question and how to ask multiple questions.

11:13.665 --> 11:17.845
So when starts to get a window into these very diverse

11:17.985 --> 11:19.685
and sometimes eccentric,

11:19.755 --> 11:24.365
idiosyncratic ways people get together in social groups,

11:24.505 --> 11:26.445
and then in, in terms of the larger picture,

11:26.865 --> 11:30.405
it reinforces a message of trying

11:30.405 --> 11:32.365
to understand historical trend in

11:32.725 --> 11:33.925
historically grounded ways.

11:34.665 --> 11:35.965
So the associational life

11:35.965 --> 11:39.725
of the 1950s in the United States was very much organized

11:39.725 --> 11:43.725
around formal churches and formal organizations.

11:44.065 --> 11:46.205
The associational life of Americans,

11:46.935 --> 11:50.165
maybe in the 2050s will be much more aligned around

11:50.685 --> 11:52.565
informal, you might call them.

11:53.005 --> 11:54.805
I don't know if this is a phrase you have in Britain,

11:55.095 --> 11:59.765
popup associations that, that come into being for a while,

12:00.065 --> 12:05.045
but perhaps, then go are shut down for later on.

12:05.705 --> 12:08.445
Uh, these are, these are a couple of the things that,

12:08.725 --> 12:10.885
I think future researchers are to keep in mind.

00:00 - There's been a long debate in the United States about the question of Americans involvement in, group life. And, the, the concern has been that, Americans are increasingly, unable to form and, act, participate in social groups. The most dramatic part

00:20 - of this storyline was a publication in 2000 of a book entitled Bowling Alone by the political scientist Robert Putnam. And, a very interesting book, very complex, but a major through line in the book is the argument that associational life and the United States is in decline. when put an asterisk on it, associational life has been historically associated with Americans in the classic work of the Tocqueville on democracy in America.

00:50 - So that was the background. sort of the conceptual or theoretical issue is, what is happening to Americans participation in social life way We've tried to understand, membership participation in organizations and associations is through a very standard question that was developed in the 1950s and 1960s. And because it's been measured repeatedly in surveys over the decades, it becomes the standard by which people try to assess what's happened to American participation.

01:21 - And this standard question presents the respondent with a list of types of organizations, veterans, group, farm clubs, hobby associations, professional clubs, unions, veterans, and so forth, about 17 different types. And they responded, has asked, well, how many of these types do you belong to? And the answer to that has been tracked over time. And the gross answer is, there's been a decline or apparent decline in the involvement. Now, that has fueled a lot of the argument

01:57 - that Americans have been losing their associational life, and they're becoming increasingly people who quote unquote bowl alone as opposed to bowling in teams. that was the metaphor, very catching metaphor that Robert Putnam used. Critics of the argument have focused on this methodological issue of how do you know how people are participating or how much people are participating? They're focused on this question for a couple of reasons. One is it presents essentially formal organizations

02:30 - as the way people participate in associational life. And also it has a list of organizational types that as the decades passed seems to be increasingly out of date. So, for example, Americans are asked whether they belong to a farm organization. Very few Americans are farmers, but they're not asked in the standard question whether they belong to any online or web associations, groups, chat links and so forth. so that's been the critique.

03:02 - And, that was the issue I addressed in the paper under consideration here. What I think we brought to the topic was a survey, which allowed us to look at the way people were involved in associations in a variety of ways, not just this standard, checklist formation. The survey itself, is a survey of people in the San Francisco Bay area, about, 1100 of them in two groups, young people, 21 to 30 years old, and older people, 50 to 70 years old, for reasons

03:39 - that are not relevant right now. And, we inter we surveyed these people, in the study, which is called uc, nets, uc for University of California Nets for Network Study. uc Nets surveyed them largely, most of the survey was about their personal relationships, who they were involved with, who they spent time with, who they discussed personal problems with, who they could rely on an emergency and so forth. But we did ask some questions that tried

04:07 - to get a group life, and we tried to do it in a different way, that allowed people to tell us about what their social lives were like. outside of the constraints of that standard question that's been used for decades to measure this, phenomenon, quite one is we used the question was, which was somewhat similar to the standard question, simplified a little, but still, here's a checklist of types of organizations. Which of these are you active in?

04:37 - we then follow up with a question about whether they were, people were involved in informal groups like book clubs, hiking groups, something like that. We also asked them, to volunteer other organizations they might belong to. and another thing we did was to ask, when people told us about their personal relationships, they would list and respond to these questions about who you do this or that with.

05:05 - They would list names, they would, Sam, bill Jane, so forth. And we would ask about Sam, bill, Jane, and so on. And one of the questions was, how did, what ways do you know this person? And the respondents were given an option of answering questions, like, questions like, like that with answers such as, we're in the choir together at church, or, or we meet, every Thursday for Tai Chi, or something like that.

05:34 - The promise of this methodology, we thought, was that it really allowed us to take a look at the variety of ways people are involved with one another. Very diverse ways that, we given our own social positions might not anticipate kinds of things. I mean, none of us involved in the project were motorcycle bike riders, for example. But that was cer that was one

06:01 - of the groups that was mentioned. And, I think in the end, the punchline of the study is that we uncovered a wide variety, a diverse variety of social involvements that people had at, at, on a group basis. Not just a diadic one-on-one basis, but on a group basis, which one is we've discovered or rediscovered. And we're not the only researchers in this area, but I think we have contributed a picture of a variety

06:32 - of kinds of ways people are involved in groups. I've mentioned a couple hiking groups, religious groups of that are not formally religious in a sense of having a church building and a minister. people's activity, volunteer activities such as being a docent at a museum or volunteering weekly, to help out children in a homeless shelter, for example. they are things that people do.

07:03 - Some people do these individually. But the striking thing for us was the extent to which we can identify the way people did this as groups. Now, the feature that's very critical here is the informality and the unstructured, in some ways unins institutionalized form of these associations. The standard question very much relied on the image of formal organizations. You join, you get a membership card.

07:27 - There are weekly meetings. There are, there are elected presidents and vice presidents. there's all sorts of forms. and, and, and there are, it was a classic era in America where many of these kinds of associations were very popular. The fraternal orders, I don't know if they have similar things they probably do in Britain, but the order of the Elks, the order of the moose, the order of the Eastern Star.

07:52 - Now these have totally gone out of fashion. but to assume that they've gone outta fashion means that people are not getting together. That's the slip in the logic. And so the first set of findings in our study, I think is just to describe the diversity. And when you, when you count up the different ways the individual respondents in our survey describe their social involvements, their group involvements, the proportion

08:18 - who you would say are involved in at least some kind of social group increases substantially from roughly half to roughly two thirds. Once you start to include, include things like the weekly sports game that's nobody has uniforms and nobody pays dues, but everybody gets together, they see each other. It's a social time as well as a athletic time. Once you start to count those kinds of groups, the, just the volume of membership increases.

08:47 - and as I said, the variety increases. Now the second part of the question is essentially what you asked before, which is what does this imply for the big research question of historical trends? And of course, our survey was just a snapshot in time and, we would have to replicate it, later on and on to see what the trend lines are. But I was also able in this study, to take a look at a handful of other surveys that were comparable that,

09:23 - cast some light on this associational membership going back to the 1960s into the 2010s. And if you line them up and you use a more liberal, open, diverse sense of what group life is, the conclusion is that there's probably not been a secular trend down toward bowling alone. What there has been is a diversification and to use a term that appears in the social science literature in

09:58 - formalization of a lot of this social activity. And I think it fits well, I think with other things we know, other things I've written about social life in America, for example, to take a, somewhere of a step set aside. There does seem to have been, and this was one of the things de described in Robert Putney's Bowling Alone, a decline in formal entertaining and dining in people's homes. Americans just don't have dinners with people over as often as they used to.

10:31 - On the other hand, there's been an increase in the number of times people see their friends socially out of doors, outside at cafes, restaurants, and social events. And so I think the bigger story is not a decline in American sociability, but a reorganization. And as I said, a more informal, more perhaps individually chosen form of sociability. And so we have suggestions for how, future research on the question of associational life ought to be designed.

11:08 - And, we make some practical suggestions about how to ask the question and how to ask multiple questions. So when starts to get a window into these very diverse and sometimes eccentric, idiosyncratic ways people get together in social groups, and then in, in terms of the larger picture, it reinforces a message of trying to understand historical trend in historically grounded ways. So the associational life

11:35 - of the 1950s in the United States was very much organized around formal churches and formal organizations. The associational life of Americans, maybe in the 2050s will be much more aligned around informal, you might call them. I don't know if this is a phrase you have in Britain, popup associations that, that come into being for a while, but perhaps, then go are shut down for later on. these are, these are a couple of the things that, I think future researchers are to keep in mind.

Faculti AI can make mistakes