Putnam’s 2020 update found the internet failed to replenish social capital

Evidence

In 2020, however, the social scientist—holed up alone in his New Hampshire home during the pandemic—took a much gloomier view of the subject. In a characteristically downbeat afterword to a new edition of Bowling Alone, Putnam found that there was no “correlation between internet usage and civic engagement,” while the future promised “cyberbalkanization” not “digital democracy.” The stocks of social capital had not been replenished. — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 97