Rising TV viewing correlates with a large decline in civic participation

Evidence

Robert Putnam in his account of solitude in America, Bowling Alone, correlated the rise in TV viewing particularly with a massive drop, sometimes on the order of 50 percent, in community activities and civic participation. — George Michelsen Foy, Zero Decibels, 448

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — George Michelsen Foy, Zero Decibels: The Quest for Absolute…, 448
• XREF: connects to: The public sphere collapses when the public becomes a statistical artifact — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 647; The television generation accounts for 10-15 percent of the group participation decline; American civil society vibrancy has notably declined over recent decades — Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: America’s Declining…, 6 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• The public sphere collapses when the public becomes a statistical artifact #complicates (0.75) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 647