SCN: "Closing the Divide" from Seattle PI

Tue Jun 27 14:24:22 PDT 2000

FYI, an op-ed from Sunday's PI (and, presumably lots of other papers).  
Robert Putnam from the Kennedy School at Harvard will be at Town Hall 
tomorrow evening.

   Closing the Divide: Turning virtual communities into real ones 

   Sunday, June 25, 2000

   By ROBERT PUTMAN and PAUL RESNICK 
   SPECIAL TO THE SEATTLE P-I

   The New Economy led by technology pioneers in places like Seattle is
   making Americans more prosperous. But material wealth is joined on the
   national stage by a sense of spiritual impoverishment: feelings of
   isolation among individuals, distance between neighbors, disconnection
   within communities.

   The challenge before us and not just in places where entrepreneurs and
   future-thinking individuals thrive is whether the people who were
   smart enough to invent the New Economy can also help us retool our
   social connections, so the advances of this age can bring us together
   rather than drive us further apart.

   The loss of connection is what we call "civic disengagement." Evidence
   for this lost sense of community can be found all around us; its costs
   are increasing and are quite real.

   Americans spend more time than ever watching television and less time
   participating in civic organizations and having friends over to
   dinner. In the past 40 years, our civic and voluntary organizations
   have experienced a sustained decline. Some, like the PTA, have lost
   more than 50 percent of their membership. We spend about one-third
   less time with friends and neighbors than we did two decades ago. The
   percentage of income that Americans donate to charity is down 30
   percent over the same period. Fading political participation is marked
   not just by the 25 percent decline in voting turnout, but also by the
   60 percent decline in participation in any public meeting about local
   affairs. Bowling in leagues is down 60 percent.

   No matter where you look, the activities that brought Americans closer
   together the activities that built friendships and relationships, that
   made neighborhoods and opportunities for cooperation and advancement
   are all in deep decline.

   The origins of these trends had nothing to do with the personal
   computer and the Internet, for the collapse of connectedness began
   before Bill Gates left View Ridge Elementary School.

   However, many serious social critics argue that the tools and terms of
   the New Economy will make these disturbing social trends even worse.
   That our gadgets and the entertainment they deliver, from the Walkman
   to Napster, seem customized to increase that sense of national
   solitude. We hear reports (as yet unconfirmed) that surfing the Net
   fosters social isolation. And even the language of the New Economy
   reminds us that when we live in a "virtual community," it's something
   short of the real thing.

   Does it matter that we would rather watch "The Simpsons" than go down
   to the Moose Lodge? Does it matter that we are substituting Internet
   Radio for concerts in the public square? That we spend more time with
   "Friends" than with friends?

   It matters enormously: The positive effects of civic engagement cause
   many of the things we cherish safe streets, good schools and healthy
   families. The best predictor of SAT scores in a community is not
   spending on schools but civic involvement. The best predictor of low
   crime in a neighborhood is the number of people who know one another's
   name.

   A few days ago, the Annie E. Casey Foundation published its latest
   "Kid's Count" index of children's welfare in different states covering
   infant mortality, teen pregnancy, teen suicide and the like. The best
   predictor of that doleful index is not poverty or poor education but
   community disconnectedness. Our concern about the decline in community
   represents not nostalgia for the long-gone '50s, but a hardheaded
   assessment of the measurable costs of a frayed community fabric.

   This is neither a jeremiad against the New Economy nor a tirade
   against the people who enjoy its benefits. We know from history that
   Americans a century ago who faced a hauntingly similar crisis of
   community responded magnificently, creating opportunities for
   engagement from the Boy Scouts to Hadassah to the National Consumers
   League.

   And we know on a practical level today that in places like Seattle, at
   the leading edge of technology and the global marketplace, people are
   using their know-how to create new organizations that can revitalize
   American civic life in the Information Age. Rebuilding community in
   America is a big, hairy, audacious goal. It is a challenge uniquely
   suited to a town that combines unusual community-mindedness with a
   well-honed ability to make the future happen.

   Currently, television is the only leisure activity for which doing
   more of it is associated with lower social capital; it provides
   passive, solitary entertainment. It is up to high-tech meccas like
   Seattle to ensure that the Internet becomes more like a nifty
   telephone (an invention that enhanced social connectedness) than a
   nifty television.

   Although far too much has been said about the Internet and pornography
   and other civic evils, not enough has been said about the great civic
   capacity that the Internet could have. The trick, in our view, is to
   avoid dichotomous thinking "virtual community" vs. "real community"
   and to think instead about how to blend computer-mediated
   communication and face-to-face communities. (One promising technique
   is to connect people based on common interests and geographic
   proximity, as we are doing at BetterTogether.org).

   The idea that the Internet should be used to enhance social capital is
   not inimical to the idea of earning a profit. One commercial Web site,
   evite.com, exemplifies how you can create an Internet venture that
   boosts social capital. Evite.com is a one-stop social calendar. It
   allows you to send out personalized invitations to social gatherings,
   it tallies RSVPs and keeps track of who has responded, and it even
   sends you reminders of important events like birthdays and
   anniversaries. By facilitating entertaining and social planning, this
   Web site increases our stock of social capital.

   Additionally, by putting entertaining online, it helps to lend an aura
   of modernity to something that many people had viewed as passe.
   However, a site like evite only helps you interact with people you
   already know. While this is an important part of rebuilding social
   capital, it is also important for Americans to enlarge their networks
   and to reach out to a broader array of people. Luckily, the Internet
   also can be used to create synergy between virtual and real
   communities in order to produce dynamic new networks of social
   connectedness.

   One example is webgrrls.com. The mission statement at the
   organization's Web site states that "Webgrrls International provides a
   forum for women in or interested in new media and technology to
   network, exchange job and business leads, form strategic alliances,
   mentor and teach, intern and learn the skills to help women succeed in
   an increasingly technical workplace and world." Webgrrls not only
   offers its members extensive resources online, such as tutorials on
   "understanding techie terminology" and a member chat room, but it
   includes local chapters that meet regularly to network and to listen
   to speakers discussing various aspects of the technology industry.

   Another hopeful idea is the creation by Fast Times, an e-zine, of a
   nationwide network of local chapters called Company of Friends that
   link New Economy entrepreneurs in ways that enhance both career
   prospects and community service. In a sense, Webgrrls and Company of
   Friends aim to do for America's women and men in today's tech sector
   what Paul Harris did for America's men in business and the professions
   when he founded the Rotary Club in 1905.

   While Webgrrls and Fast Company have yet to create as developed a
   civic agenda as the Rotary Club, these organizations are still only a
   few years old, and there are signs that they are starting to plant
   civic roots. For example, the New York City chapter of Webgrrls is
   currently participating "in a new group called Girl Friends, a NYC
   organization created by the Girl Scouts that brings together
   organizations that work with and serve young women"
   ([22]www.webgrrls.com/ny/aboutus/volunteer.shtml). This represents not
   only a blending of virtual and real communities, but also a synergy
   between old-line and cutting-edge organizations.

   Another use of new technology to create social capital can be found at
   Wellesley College, Hillary Rodham Clinton's alma mater. Wellesley
   operates a sophisticated bulletin system that all its students can
   access from their dorm rooms. This system allows students to post
   announcements for social activities, club meetings and job
   opportunities. Many students are induced to attend conferences or join
   organizations solely because of the information they receive over
   bulletin. Additionally, many of the campus' most heated debates about
   politics or school life occur over bulletin, a forum where every
   student has an equal opportunity to speak her mind.

   Analogous in some respects to Wellesley's bulletins are neighborhood
   e-mail lists. These lists allow one person to send a message quickly
   to a whole group. Too many messages can be overwhelming, but useful
   social conventions may evolve. For example, one of the authors set up
   an e-mail list for his block. It receives about one message a month,
   but it's there when needed.

   Of course, the cases presented here represent only a tiny fraction of
   the traffic that daily crisscrosses the "information superhighway."
   Not all of the promising ideas for blending real and virtual
   communities will turn out to be successful, any more than every
   dot-com will flourish.

   But with enough bright ideas being tried, some winning ideas will
   surely emerge. The challenge for Seattle, and for the whole country,
   is to create more of the kind of Web sites and software that will
   allow us to unlock the social capital capacity of the Internet.

   Imagine looking back in the year 2010 to see that America's social
   capital has been renewed. Almost certainly, computers and the Internet
   will have been part of the solution. Maybe the historians will say it
   all started here in Seattle. How do you want to rebuild community
   today?
   ___________________________________

   Robert Putnam is the Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard
   University. His most recent book is "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and
   Revival of American Community." Paul Resnick is an associate professor
   at the University of Michigan School of Information, where he
   organizes the school's Community Information Corps.

Book Talk

   A conversation about the loss of social capital in America, as
   detailed in Robert Putnam's book, "Bowling Alone," will be held at
   7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Town Hall, 1119 8th Ave., Seattle.

   The CityClub event, sponsored by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and
   the Seattle Foundation, is open to the public. Tickets, at $5, can be
   purchased from CityClub (206-682-7395), at Elliott Bay Books, 101 S.
   Main St., and at the door.

More Info

   BetterTogether.org is devoted to documenting and spreading innovations
   in how Americans connect to each other. It connects organizers to each
   other through stories about their organizing efforts.

   Want to know what other social capitalists are doing? Have a story to
   tell about new ways of connecting people?

   Visit the "Story Collector" at [23]www.BetterTogether.org

   BetterTogether.org is a project of the Saguaro Seminar on civic
   engagement at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *  From the Listowner  * * * * * * * * * * * *
.	To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to:
majordomo at scn.org		In the body of the message, type:
unsubscribe scn
==== Messages posted on this list are also available on the web at: ====
* * * * * * *     http://www.scn.org/volunteers/scn-l/     * * * * * * *