Social Capital and Hanging Out with our Dogs and Cats

Andy is blogging today.

I recently came across an article in The Atlantic entitled “Why Americans Suddenly Stopped Hanging Out” by Derek Thompson.  When I saw that Thompson began his discussion with a reference to Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam’s influential book published in 2000,  I knew that the topic would be “right up my alley” (so to speak). I should add that over in today’s OurLittleCorner Ann found that her topic was “all in the cards.”

Putnam’s book meticulously documents the dramatic membership decline in civic and social organizations across the U.S. The title, “Bowling Alone” was a reference to the sharp decrease in the percent of U.S. households with members belonging to bowling leagues – from 75% in the late 1950s to less than 25% by 2000.  This downswing was happening in organizations across the board and to Putnam was a sign that individuals were losing the benefits they gain through their social networks and relationships – what he calls “social capital.”

[Editor’s note: if you get your hands on a copy of the book take a look at the appendix which includes graph after graph showing organizations that experienced a downward spiral.]

Derek Thompson’s piece in The Atlantic picks up where Putnam left off. His conclusions, based upon an analysis of data from large surveys, is not encouraging. As he bluntly puts it: “If Putnam felt the first raindrops of an antisocial revolution in America, the downpour is fully here, and we’re all getting washed away in the flood… there is no statistical record of any other period in U.S. history when people have spent more time on their own.”

It’s not that we are spending more time alone that’s important, it’s how we are spending that time. Thompson points out that solitude has become “less solitary than ever” as witnessed by “unprecedented terabytes of interpersonal communication” – all without the tangible payoffs of face-to-face human interaction. I must confess my relief that he didn’t mention the hours some people devote to solitary on-line games such as Wordle and Connections.

But what hit close to home was Thompson’s observation that many Americans “have traded people for pets.” He found that the average time that Americans spend with their pets has roughly doubled in the past 20 years and that this was especially true for women:

Those who have followed our blog over the years are well aware that Ann and I have a pet-centric household. And the amount of time (which is considerable) that we “actively engage” with our pets is pretty much equally divided between us. In fact, living in a small house with a geriatric Aussie, a rambunctious Cardigan Corgi, an overweight lovable Seal Point Siamese cat, and a small unpredictably-vicious Tabby Point Siamese cat lends itself to more “active engagement” than you could imagine. If we were to spend as much time on face-to-face interaction with other humans we would have little time for anything else, let alone feeding and caring for our pets.

This got me concerned about just how much “social capital” we were squandering by hanging out with our pet family members. It turns out that my new-favorite on-line publication, Greater Good Magazine, has a Social Capital quiz which supposedly estimates your social capital value. But to be honest, when I took the quiz I found it to be lacking. Not one of the 26 quiz questions asked anything about the frequency (or intensity) of face-to-whisker interaction with pets. Maybe I’m biased, but my face-to-whisker interaction seems to (nearly) always give me a lift. Surely that should count as some sort of social-capital-related benefit.

It’s clear that I’m not alone in thinking that interaction with our pets has social value. A sizable body of research provides persuasive evidence that schmoozing with one’s pets has all kinds of positive outcomes. For example, the National Institutes of Health’s on-line publication News in Health reports that interacting with animals not only decreases stress levels and blood pressure it can reduce loneliness, increase feelings of social support, and generally improve our mood. And, even though ignoring animals on their social capital quiz, the Greater Good Magazine comes through with scientific support for the individual and social benefits of interacting with dogs (“The Science-Backed Benefits of Being a Dog Owner“) and cats (“The Science-Backed Benefits of Being a Cat Lover“).

When it’s all said and done, I like to think that if I were to come home from a night of bowling alone I would be able to refill my depleted social capital tank by engaging in some quality time with our motley four-legged crew. I wonder if Robert Putnam would have been less pessimistic when writing his book had he been surrounded by pets.

PS: Over in OurLittleCorner Ann has posted a “goat-to” recipe – I “kid” you not.