In 2000, Robert Putnam published his book, Bowling Alone, that chronicles the decline of social capital or community in the late 20th century. In the late 20th century, Putnam argues, people are less involved with each other than any other point in time. We join fewer clubs, volunteer less, are less involved with politics and are generally just more solitary. Where once to pay our dues we needed to be physically present somewhere, now we can do so with our money or the internet. Our old forums of communal engagement have withered and been replaced by the impersonal hands of the internet. If this is true, and I suspect that it is, what does it mean for those of us who are living in this Age of Loneliness, and what are we to do to escape it?

Furthermore, Aristotle, in Politics, once wrote that “man is by nature a social animal.” It is possible to interpret this in one of two ways – either man is by their nature drawn into society or, man, in order to be truly man, or to live a fulfilled life, must participate in society. If the former is the correct way of interpretation, the decline of social capital is relatively unproblematic – we still live in a society (if we define society in a thin, rather than thick sense) and thus are still living according to our nature. However, if we interpret it in the second possible way, the decline of social capital may be slightly more problematic. The second reading lends itself to a thicker concept of society or community; what matters is not simply our living under a common set of laws with others, but our integration into the community through participation in various forms of political life. These sorts of things are exactly what is in decline according to Putnam which may be problematic for those living today.

The way in which the problematicity of the decline of social capital manifests may be in our mental health. If our flourishing requires the cultivation of communal relationships that are in decline, we would expect there to be some evidence of our not-flourishing existing somewhere and our mental health is exactly where we find this. In fact, mental illness diagnoses are on the rise amongst every age group:

Perhaps more of note though is the fact that the rise is greater in younger age groups, a finding that falls in line with Putnam’s findings. Putnam argues that much of the decline in social capital is not personal, but generational. This means that the decline is not caused so much by individuals choosing to participate in communal activities less, but because the current generation’s 18 year olds, 30 year olds and 55 year olds participate less than the 18, 30 and 55 year olds of the previous generation. The shift is not occurring in the personal sphere but on a more meta-level in our cultural milieu. The younger generations are simply less likely to participate in society than the older generations were.

What could be the variable that is causing the younger generation to be affected more seriously than the older generation? Most notably it would appear to be technology, namely the internet and social media. While the older generation may adapt by gradually integrating social media into their lives and replace some of their old communal activities (which explains the modest increase in mental health issues), the younger generations have grown up in the social media age and been fully immersed in all of its wonder. While older people today may use social media, it is not as constitutive of their identity as it is for younger people. This helps to explain why the increase is widespread but stronger among the youth.

This thesis is at least tentatively supported by mental health experts as well. Dr. Laurel Williams, the chief of psychiatry at Texas Children’s Hospital offered the following statement:

“There’s a lack of community. There’s the amount of time that we spend in front of screens and not in front of other people. If you don’t have a community to reach out to, then your hopelessness doesn’t have any place to go.”

This suggests that the reason why mental health issues exist may not be related to social media and the internet, but at least part of the reason why we are less able to manage and cope with the effects is due to the withering of our communal networks. However, the shift in our cultural milieu with regards to the pervasiveness of internet and social media may be a key environmental factor (the CDC suggests that our environment is one of several relevant factors for mental illness) that affects our mental health.

So if our community is collapsing and harming us, what are we to do? Perhaps the first step is for those who bear responsibility for social media to take steps to loosen its grips on us. The first step in this direction may have been taken by the management team at Instagram has removed the ability for everyone except the poster to see the number of likes on their photos. This may play a small part in reducing the anxiety one has as to how others view them on the basis of their social media clout, but likely it is not enough to solve the issues. It is likely that the amount of change required from social media apps and companies to fully loosen their grip would render the services barely recognizable, and more importantly, profitable. In fact, some are already taking a critical eye towards the changes and some ‘influencers’ are skeptical about the changes (although some do support it). The major changes necessary, in conjunction with this minor change, would likely have drastic effects on the possibility of influencers existing and would dampen the profitability of Instagram as we gradually hold it less near-and-dear to our hearts. While it would be great if we could expect so much social responsibility from those in charge of these apps, the spirit of Capitalism is profitability and it remains exceedingly unlikely that these Social Media Giants will sacrifice their precious profits in exchange for our mental health.

Another possibility is to take responsibility for reducing the influence of these social media magnates into our own hands. However, given that social media can be addictive, it is unlikely we can do this entirely ourselves. Part of the issue with addiction is that it is not simply possible for one to lift their self by their bootstraps and overcome it. Addiction is a genuine illness that requires treatment, not merely willpower. What then is the solution? Are we simply doomed to sad and solitary lives in this Age of Loneliness?

I think not. However, the solution may require a significant diminishing of the Capitalist Spirit that currently runs rampant through society. Given that we cannot count on those blinded by profitability to save us and may be unable to save ourselves, the best solution appears, at least to me, to be the nationalization of these social media services. By nationalizing social media services, we are able to entrust those who (at least in theory) are supposed to act in the interest of The Greater Good to take the necessary steps to reduce the hold of social media on the people. With the blinders of profitability removed, those in charge would be able to freely take the necessary steps to reform social media to the extent necessary to free the people from its grasp. The responsibility of social media will then not be to its shareholders, but to those who it truly affects, the users.

Given that we shouldn’t expect this reform to take place any time soon, what should we do? Currently, there are at least some things offered that will help to free us from the tyranny of social media. Most phones come equipped with built-in screen time tracking and limiting that allows us to limit that amount we expose ourselves to social media. If it is not built-in, there are several apps that perform this service for free or a modest fee. This is a good first step to take to reduce the effect of social media on our mental health. Another step is to simply try and rebuild our community – get more involved, join a club, engage in face-to-face interaction instead of screen-to-screen interaction. These are not fix-all solutions, but first steps that may be taken as we wait for a more genuine solution to arise.

In this post there are certainly a lot of floating loose ends that I have not tied, and do not plan to, but are deserving of mention. Firstly, Putnam has been criticized as to whether or not social capital is truly declining – my argument here is dependent on it being the case that Putnam is correct. Secondly, I conjecture, although with some support, that social media, internet and technology is largely responsible for the decline in social capital and wellness. Again, this is a contestable idea – perhaps there is a lurking variable or variables that explain these phenomena better than social media and the internet. Lastly, I suggest that the only way to solve the issue-at-hand is through the nationalization of social media services because we cannot bootstrap out of the issue nor rely on the companies who are predicated on profitability to sacrifice a portion of their profits in pursuit of The Greater Good. This may be wrong in three ways: firstly, social media may not truly be an addiction – there are certainly some experts who live on both sides of this issue; secondly, there may be a way to solve the problems without sacrificing profitability or, those in charge may indeed sacrifice the profitability of the services altruistically; finally, there may be another unexplored solution that I am oblivious to – some sort of middle group between nationalization and complete laissez-faire operation (perhaps government oversight but not out-right control).

I do not expect to convince all who read this of the problem, my reasoning or even my solution. However, I do hope that this results in some amount of greater thought into the issue, its problematicity and how we can solve the issues presented, if they are genuine. Living in an Age of Loneliness is certainly not desirable – and if we are currently inhabiting it, we need to recognize and overcome it. We may or may not be social animals as Aristotle theorized, but if we are, at least to an extent, it is time to re-build our social capital and free ourselves from the tyrannizing hold of Loneliness on our way to a healthier society full of flourishing for all.