Generational replacement drives twice the civic decline television does

Evidence

However, other changes-especially the period effect of changing generations-are clearly also important in the sense that they correlate with reduced civic engagement over recent decades. Putnam’s data suggest that the generational effect is about twice the effect of television viewing, although these two are not independent. The television generation accounts for between 10 and 15 percent of the total decline in group participation rates over the period from 1965 to 2000 (Putnam 2000, 284). — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 735

Categorization

• QUESTION: Putnam attributes most decline to the cohort that came of age amid Vietnam/Watergate revelations of governmental duplicity — worth chasing how distrust clusters by generation.
• XREF: connects to: Generational succession explains roughly half of America’s civic decline since the 1970s — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 981