Mister Rogers would be so disappointed in me.
Aside from the people who live in my building, I know the name of only one
person who lives on my block: Roger Cohen, a Times colleague.
I want to blame it on the fact that I’m absolutely awful with names and can
be quite socially awkward. But that has ever been thus. Then I thought that
maybe it was a city thing, but that explanation goes but so far. I’m actually
beginning to believe that it’s bigger than me, bigger than my block, bigger than
this city. I increasingly believe that less neighborliness is becoming intrinsic
to the modern American experience — a most unfortunate development.
A report
issued Wednesday by the Pew Research Center found that only 43 percent of
Americans know all or most of their neighbors by name. Twenty-nine percent know
only some, and 28 percent know none. (Oh, my God! When Roger dashes off to Paris
this summer, I’ll become a “none.”)
Yet I have thousands of “friends” and “followers” on the social-networking
sites in which I vigorously participate. (In real life, I maintain a circle of
friends so small that I could barely arrange a circle.) Something is wrong with
this picture.
I am by no means a woe-is-us, sky-is-falling, evil-is-the-Internet type. In
fact, I think that a free flow of information has led to greater civic
engagement. Yippee! However, I am very much aware that social networks are
rewiring our relationships and that our keyboard communities are affecting the
attachments in our actual ones.
For instance, a
Pew report issued in November 2009 and entitled “Social Isolation and New
Technology” found that “users of social networking services are 26 percent less
likely to use their neighbors as a source of companionship.”
And a
May study by researchers at the University of Michigan found that “college
kids today are about 40 percent lower in empathy than their counterparts of 20
or 30 years ago.” The reason? One factor could be social networking. As one
researcher put it, “The ease of having ‘friends’ online might make people more
likely to just tune out when they don’t feel like responding to others’
problems, a behavior that could carry over offline.”
Furthermore, an
article in The New York Times on Thursday laid out new research that
revealed that “feelings of hurt, jealousy and competition are widespread” among
children of parents who obsess over cellphones, instant messaging and Twitter at
the expense of familial engagement.
There’s no need to pine for a return to the pre-Facebook, cardigan-swaddled
idealism of Mister Rogers and his charming “neighbors” and “friends,” but it is
important for us to remember that tangible, meaningful engagement with those
around us builds better selves and stronger communities. I should post that on
Twitter.