In the interview, Lynne Smith-Lovin and Robert Putnam discuss a myriad of reasons that may attribute to the decline in core discussion networks in the last 20 years. Smith-Lovin initially makes a claim that this specific change is part of long-term social change concerning our allocation of time. She argues that we spend more time involved in paid-labor and are more dispersed, thus, farther away from our strong ties. Peter Monge explains that frequency is an important element in establishing strong ties with others, and so logically, if we have less time to spend with others, it would attribute to the decline in our core discussion network. Putnam adds to this argument by stating that the long-term pattern in lower group affiliation and leisure activities leads to a general decline in our networks. I find this to be the most important element of the change in our core discussion groups, since we simply do not have the time nor have the venues to create strong ties. Also, Putnam later adds that religious institutions have a large role in developing strong ties. As a nation that has become less religious (he notes that this changing), it can have a significant role in the development of strong ties from an early age.
One element that they didn’t explicitly discuss in their interview was the important role of suburbs in changing social networking. Although the mass move to the suburbs was mostly prevalent after WWII, the last twenty years have marked an even stronger move to cities due to rising urban costs and increased urban sprawl, which has contributed to the finding that more people are dispersed. Elizabeth Bott finds that more dispersed family units have less strong ties with one another. Since Wellman and Worley found that we get a lot of our support services from family, then we can conclude that this pattern of dispersement directly contributes to our declining number of strong ties.
Also, to additionally understand the more grand-scale structural societal changes taking place, Kalmijn would mention the changes in our patterns of dyadic withdrawal due to changes in marriage rates, cohabitation, and divorce. He would note that since our society has become more liberal when it comes to establishing serious relationships (i.e. more acceptable for people to cohabitate without being married), and combine this with the fact that most of McPherson’s findings that most strong ties are spouses, we can assume that network size is declining since more people are cohabitating, and thus replacing their larger network and support of close friends with the similar resources their spouse can offer them. Also, since the divorce rate appears to have risen from the 80s to 2004, one can also assume that a loss of a strong tie in our core discussion group could be due to losing a spouse as a confidant.
The basis of Punam and Smith-Lovin’s discussion revolves around strong ties in core discussion networks. They classified these individuals as people with whom one would discuss important things. Based on the findings of Wellman and Worley in “Different Strokes from Different Folks”, the authors explained the different resources that ties offer someone. They note that supportive functions have a direct relationship with the strength of the tie. Their research concluded that people get the majority of their social support from their small number of strong ties, and includes emotional aid, small services, and companionship. Thus, if our core discussion groups are declining, which means that our strong tie network is declining, then we can expect a direct decline in the availability of services. Also, is Wellman’s paper on “The Network Community”, he cites that most community ties are specialized, where members within that community offer specific kinds of social support. So, since the two talk-show guests mentioned the overall decline in community involvement and civic duty, we can additionally conclude that, overall, we are losing other specific kinds of social support that came from our community networks. In Wellman’s study, he additionally adds that communities “are not just a way in which people spend some of their leisure time but key mechanisms by which people and household obtain resources.” Thus, based on the findings that people have less leisure time and lesser role in community and civic affairs, one can assume that their ability to obtain resources (services, information, support) will also be negatively affected.
In McPherson’s study on the decline of social networks also raises the interesting issue of homophily and predominately kinship ties. In “Birds of a Feather”, McPherson and Smith-Lovin also note that homophily is dominant in people’s social networks, in regard to forming new ties, and retaining old ones. If we are predominately strongly connected to those who are like us, chances are that we will face redundancy, where the same support services are offered my multiple people. Consequently, we constrict ourselves from gaining other support services that may not be prevalent within our existing homophilous network. Also, friendship ties that are less similar dissolve at faster rate. Thus, this could lead us to lose more diverse support offerings. Our ability to form new ties is also limited in that we network to those that are similar (in terms of race, gender, values, activities), so, as a result, we directly limit the amount of new information available.
The issue of social capital is another interesting perspective to approach the decline in core discussion networks. In Burt’s research about social capital, he notes that people obtain information, referral, and access from other ties. Thus, with the decline in a core discussion group and Putnam’s observation of an overall change in the size of networks (including weak ties), it is possible that we are experiencing a decline in social capital. This is also reinforced by Burt’s observation that social capital is rooted in the social capital of organizations and communities, so if we have less leisure time to partake in those associations, then that also contributes to declining social capital.