Latest news with #BowlingAlone
CNBC
5 days ago
- General
- CNBC
25% of young Americans aged 18 to 24 eat every meal alone—'a virtual doubling of what it was two decades ago,' expert says
Americans are not eating enough meals together. According to the 2025 World Happiness Report, the optimal number of weekly lunches and dinners eaten with others is 13. And in the United States, people only share 7.9 of those meals together every week. The picture is even more dire for young Americans. Researchers looked at data from the American Time Use Survey, "which has a measure for the extent to which people shared meals the previous day," says Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, professor of economics and behavioral science at the University of Oxford and editor of the report. They found that in 2023, 25% of 18-to 24-year-olds ate all three meals alone the previous day. "That's a virtual doubling of what it was two decades ago," De Neve says, and it's to the detriment of their mental health. The number of meals shared with others is "as predictive of their life satisfaction, essentially their overall well-being" as their employment status or relative income, he adds. Here's why he thinks young people aren't breaking bread with others, and how they — and their institutions — can ensure they do so more often. "There's not a single smoking gun," says De Neve about the growth of this trend. There are many factors at play, and they've been building for decades. By the year 2000, when social scientist and Harvard University professor Robert Putnam published his book "Bowling Alone," the U.S. was already seeing an increase in disconnect from family, friends and neighbors. Putnam pointed to changes in work, family structure, suburban life, television and computers as contributors to the decline. When it comes to 18-to-24-year-olds, the introduction of smartphones and social media in the last two decades has only exacerbated the problem, De Neve says. An overwhelming majority, 98% of 18-to-29-year-olds have a Smartphone, according to a 2024 survey by the Pew Research Center. Smartphones are "distracting us from other human beings in the room," he says, "and are also sort of an excuse to not have to talk to people." Former U.S. surgeon general Vivek Murthy came to speak at Oxford in 2024. Murthy had just come back from a tour of American college campuses and shared a key observation. "The default now is that you do not speak to people when you go into a dining hall and you sit by yourself," De Neve says Murthy told them. To mitigate the growing lack of shared meals among young people, De Neve offers up some possible solutions. First, on an individual level, De Neve recommends taking the advice of Harvard Business School professor Arthur Brooks who he says suggests a box in both your bedroom and your kitchen where you put your phone. "That will force you to be present, and actually having conversations with people," De Neve says. On an institutional level, at universities, for example, administrators could consider having "one table in the dining hall which has a no-phone policy," he says, which signals to students that "if you're sitting here, you have to strike up a conversation." Finally, on a societal level, "we need to work with these social media tech companies," he says. While companies like Meta might have started with the intent to strengthen our personal connections, they've done the opposite. Ultimately, De Neves says, it's time to focus on putting "the 'social' back into social media."
Times
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Joining a choir is good for you and for the country
T his month, Estonians held their quinquennial Song and Dance Festival, a massive celebration of choral singing and folk dancing at the highest level. Over the days-long festival, Estonians projected joy and unity, not to mention delightful sounds. In the UK, meanwhile, community choirs are ageing and shrinking. That's a shame, because singing with others brings friendships and health benefits alike. More than 32,000 singers, nearly 11,000 dancers and some 80,000 spectators (in mostly pouring rain) were actively involved in this year's festival in Estonia: roughly 9 per cent of the country's population. And that's despite an application process for performers and ticket limitations for spectators. Countless others watched the televised performances at home, as they always do, because they were seriously impressive. • Playboy model turned Tory activist clashed with neighbour in street The UK, too, has an extraordinary choral culture. Our cathedral choirs are the envy of the world. But community choirs, once mainstays of social engagement, have fallen on harder times. The Bowling Alone phenomenon in the US, described in the book of that name by Robert D Putnam, has hit this most communal of activities, leaving choruses with ageing memberships and struggling to recruit. Gareth Malone's TV show The Choir got people excited about singing together but the high notes failed to last. Covid delivered a further blow. Not even Wales's famous male choirs have been spared. Meanwhile, loneliness is increasing and so is societal fragmentation. To itself and the world, Britain often projects a culture of bickering. • Sally Lindsay and the Style Council's Steve White on their blended family That's a shame, because we've got choirs at every level of ability and joining one brings an instantaneous social network. It also offers the opportunity to meet people from every walk of life and to collaborate with them on a worthy project. Choral singing even brings health benefits: it exercises the brain, helps relieve pain and is thought to aid the immune system. Imagine what choral singing could do for us individually, for our communities, for the NHS, even for foreign policy. David Lammy, a former boy chorister at Peterborough Cathedral, ought to know. Do a good deed for yourself and the country and join a choir. Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council
Business Times
10-06-2025
- General
- Business Times
Why is modern commerce corrosive?
YOU'RE not imagining it. There is something shallow about modern life – a sense that traditional virtues, from craftsmanship to professionalism to loyalty, have somehow been hollowed out. Don't get me wrong: I love living in the 21st century and believe that the world is a far better place in 2025 than it was in, say, 1975. Still, there is something amiss. You can see it in long-term trends such as the demise of communities built around fishing, mining or manufacturing, and in more recent calamities such as the Internet's descent into a hellscape of fraud, manufactured anxiety and artificial intelligence slop. You can see it in serious matters such as the sewage flowing into the Thames, the decay of high streets or the precarity of many modern jobs. You can see it in more trivial worries such as the way each new casual dining concept so quickly goes downhill. You can see it in the fact that every single one of these social ills is intimately connected to commerce. There is no shortage of books to consult on the matter. This hollowing out has been explored in works as varied as Sherry Turkle's Alone Together, Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, JD Vance's Hillbilly Elegy, Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone and Cory Doctorow's forthcoming Enshittification. But for the deep analysis, turn to the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue, published in 1981. MacIntyre articulated an utter disenchantment with three centuries of moral philosophy all the way back to the Enlightenment, and argued that it was hardly a surprise that modern society itself lost its way. He argued that clear thinking and virtuous action couldn't be unmoored from a social context – it had to be embedded in a community with shared values, goals and practices. His fellow philosophers found the book impossible to ignore. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up MacIntyre died in May at the age of 96, which prompted me to turn back to a piece of his writing (in the 1994 essay A Partial Response To My Critics) that has stuck with me for decades: the tale of two fishing crews. One crew is 'organised and understood as a purely technical and economic means to a productive end, whose aim is only or overridingly to satisfy as profitably as possible some market's demand for fish'. The crew members are motivated to work hard, innovate and hone their skills, because that way lies profit. The other crew has developed 'an understanding of and devotion to excellence in fishing and to excellence in playing one's part as a member of such a crew'. This excellence is about skill, to be sure – but also about character, social bonds and courage. These fishermen are risking their lives and are dependent on each other. And, adds MacIntyre, 'when someone dies at sea, fellow crew members, their families and the rest of the fishing community will share a common affliction and common responsibilities'. The values of this second crew are what we seem to be losing when a private equity group 'rolls up' hundreds of small independent vets; or when an old-fashioned private partnership such as Lehman Brothers becomes a publicly traded company; or when a business embraces a mission statement that could equally describe the aim of any other business. Try this: 'Our objective is to maximise value for our shareholders by focusing on businesses where we have market leadership, a technological edge and a world-competitive cost base'. Any guess as to the industry? It could be anything, so it means nothing. I was introduced to MacIntyre's ideas not by my philosophy tutors, but by the economist John Kay. In The Truth About Markets (2003), Kay quotes MacIntyre's description of the fishing crews, and then asks a question: which crew would make more money? MacIntyre assumed the answer was depressingly self-evident: the profit-maximising crew will be an unstoppable force, which is why modern commerce is so corrosive. Organisations that offer the riches of friendship, community, loyalty, craft and professionalism are sure to be driven out of business by the relentless economic logic of the profit-maximiser. They make money, and destroy what really matters. But do they really make money? Kay argues that narrow profit-maximising is often a failure, even by its own denuded standards. A 1972 Harvard Business School case study examines a real-world example of MacIntyre's profit-maximising fishing crew. The Prelude Corporation, the largest lobster producer in North America, aimed to become the General Motors of the fishing industry. It went bankrupt shortly after the case study was written. Lehman Brothers is another example – was it really more successful after jettisoning the traditional structure in which the capital at risk was provided by partners who best understood the business? A third example is the chemical giant ICI, which in 1994 published that vacuous mission statement about 'market leadership'. A titan of 20th-century British manufacturing, it faded and, in 2008, was absorbed and broken up by a Dutch paint company. Perhaps ICI would have done better had they paid less attention to making money, and more attention to making chemicals. This should not really surprise us, as Kay explains in The Corporation in the 21st Century (2024). To be solidly profitable, companies need some kind of competitive advantage. That might rest on network effects, intellectual property or even political connections. But it might equally rest on a trusted brand and well-worn habits of making the right kind of decision, quickly. In other words, profitability can rest on shared values, goals and practices too. An organisation that MacIntyre himself might admire, one that has developed the right kind of culture, may well be more attractive to customers, more appealing to potential employees and simply more effective at doing all the things a particular business in a particular industry must do. Consider the Financial Times itself. I dare say everyone involved in the business prefers to be paid, and the FT aims to be profitable. Yet we didn't come here with the hope of printing money; we came with the aim of printing newspapers. If the FT's entire operation, day to day and top to bottom, was predicated on maximising profit, this would be a different newspaper. It is not obvious that it would be a more profitable one. FINANCIAL TIMES
Axios
28-05-2025
- Axios
Why Americans are camping alone more than ever
Americans are taking more solo camping trips to get away from it all. Why it matters: Depending on who you ask, it's either another symptom of America's loneliness epidemic or it's healthy YOLO move for people who just need a break from the craziness of daily life. 🏕️ The big picture: About 31% of campers went solo at least one night in 2024, according to a survey of more than 4,000 campers by The Dyrt, an app that helps people snag camping spots. That's up from 30% in 2023, 24% in 2022 and 19% in 2021. "We just keep seeing this go up, up, up," The Dyrt CEO Kevin Long tells Axios. Between the lines: The pandemic may have sparked the solo camping boom. "During the pandemic, we all got good at doing things by ourselves and got good at getting creative at how to go have experiences," Long says. "I think that has just moved forward since then and has become a permanent thing in the ecosystem." 🌳 For campers like Colorado resident Kris Angelo, the freedom to go wherever you want, whenever you want, do what you want and spend what you want is a huge draw. It's "the freedom of making all the decisions yourself and being able to choose your location," he says. "You can make it as cheap or expensive as you'd like." "I certainly wouldn't have been able to afford four vacations last year if I was staying at hotels," he adds. The intrigue: The solo camping trend looks like the latest evolution in what political scientist Robert Putnam famously chronicled in his book " Bowling Alone" — America's steady decline of togetherness and collective experiences. In some ways, Americans are more isolated than ever. For example, solo living is on the rise. Then-Surgeon General Vivek Murthy flagged loneliness as a public health issue in 2023. But Angelo argues that solo camping leads to more social interaction than you would expect: "You end up talking to the locals a lot more when you're out there by yourself than when you're traveling with people." 🐶 Reality check: Many solo campers are traveling with a four-legged friend: About half brought their dog with them in 2024, according to The Dyrt's research. That includes Angelo, who brings his Australian Shepherd mix Chappelle with him on his camping excursions, such as his trip last year to the Black Hills of South Dakota. "Are you really camping solo — you're out there with your best friend," The Dyrt's Long says.
Forbes
01-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Corporate Volunteering Is On The Rise—Here's Why That Matters Now
Corporate volunteering is having a moment. As trust in institutions declines and loneliness becomes a public health concern, more companies are stepping in to offer something surprisingly powerful: structured ways for their employees to do good together. Across boardrooms and HR summits, new trends are being discussed. At the recent Global Volunteering Summit in Palo Alto, Abhishek Humbad—founder and CEO of Goodera, a platform he describes as the 'Airbnb of employee volunteering'—stood before a packed audience of HR leaders and heads of workforce engagement. Behind him, a slide showed staggering growth: in 2023, 183,745 employees volunteered through 4,137 events facilitated by Goodera. By 2024, those numbers had nearly doubled—352,892 volunteers across 7,263 programs. Goodera isn't alone. Other platforms are reporting similar surges. Benevity, which helps companies engage employees in causes through donations, volunteering, and advocacy, saw annual participation growth of over 50% between 2021 and 2023. At one company headquartered in the Bay Area, Cisco, 80% of employees in 2024 took action to support causes they care about. Once the domain of a few purpose-driven companies, workplace volunteering is now going mainstream. So what's behind this surge? 'I believe the world is hungry for connection and purpose,' says Humbad. The data supports that belief. According to a survey of 6,000 Americans conducted by the nonprofit group More in Common US, 74% of Americans say they want to work with others on a shared goal that improves their community. This desire points to an even deeper explanation. Corporate volunteering may offer a counterforce to the disillusionment, anxiety, loneliness, and apathy that define much of modern life. The recent documentary "Join or Die" has reignited interest in the work of political scientist Robert Putnam, whose book "Bowling Alone" traces the decline of club membership and civic participation in America—and the rise in social fragmentation that followed. As participation in civic life waned, social trust and cohesion also eroded. Yet our desire for connection hasn't disappeared. What has disappeared are the on-ramps—clubs, congregations, and neighborhood associations—that once made it easy to belong. Today, life looks very different from what it was like when civic participation was at its peak many decades ago. People are busier. Childcare is costly. Family time is packed with commitments. Work is demanding. Screens compete for attention. As a result, of those who responded positively in the More in Common US survey wanting to work with others on a shared goal to improve their community, only 17% actually did so in the past year. In that context, the surge in demand for corporate volunteering opportunities is a modern response to both this desire to connect and, more broadly, to our social issues. A 2024 Harvard study reinforces this point, with 75% of 1500 respondents agreeing that 'finding ways to help others'—including through workplaces—could be one solution to the loneliness crisis and may help explain the popularity of structured volunteer programs. Yet even as more employees express a desire for connection, many, including small and medium-sized businesses, aren't sure how to respond to this need. As Humbad said in his remarks at the Global Volunteering Summit, 'People want to do good, but often don't know where to begin.' Goodera is one of the platforms working to close that gap, making it easier for people to act on their desire to help. It offers thousands of corporate volunteering opportunities across cities worldwide, both virtual and in person, for individuals and teams alike. The causes range from education and health to sustainability and local resilience. One example that's been gaining momentum? Community gardening. Across the U.S., organizations like Denver Urban Gardens (DUG) are welcoming both community members and corporate teams to roll up their sleeves and transform urban plots into places of restoration and connection. Such efforts are undoubtedly good for the environment and public health. In cities dominated by asphalt, gardens help cool the air, boost biodiversity, and restore soil health. Even a small plot of land in a dense urban area can make a difference, including for those volunteering. As DUG CEO Linda Appel Lipsius recently said to me, 'They [community garden volunteer efforts] support mental health, social connection, and physical well-being.' One military veteran who had struggled with depression found purpose as a garden leader with DUG. 'Leading a garden gave him purpose and pulled him out of that darkness. Gardens meet a basic human need: to feel needed,' Linda explained. Doug Wooley, a longtime volunteer in the Denver West area with DUG, echoed that impact: 'Why gardens? Because they let me in. Because they feed the soul. They're spaces for healing and connection.' Doug draws a powerful parallel: 'Religion used to be that communal glue—people gathered to eat, pray, and connect. As more people move away from that, we've lost those touchpoints. Gardens can fill that gap. There's no 'right' way to garden—just different approaches. That openness makes it easier to connect across divides.' He shared a story of a spring workday that fell during Ramadan. A fasting volunteer sparked a thoughtful conversation about inclusive planning, from reconsidering physically intensive tasks to supporting one another across cultures. 'It deepened our empathy,' Doug says. 'And strengthened our sense of community.' These stories mirror what research shows about how volunteering can nurture both connection and, quite literally, healing. It is well-documented that acts of service trigger the release of dopamine, which improves mood and overall life satisfaction. Meanwhile, a Carnegie Mellon study of more than 1000 respondents found that older adults who volunteered regularly had lower blood pressure. Other research has linked volunteering to increased longevity. However, the latest World Happiness Report finds that witnessing others do good, not just volunteering yourself, boosts happiness and social trust. As Humbad puts it: 'When people volunteer, walls come down. Communities strengthen. And a chain reaction of positive impact begins. It's not linear—it's exponential.' In a world where many feel disconnected from institutions, from one another, and even from a sense of purpose, corporate volunteering offers a practical, human-centered response. For companies ready to meet this moment, whether that is through community garden projects or other volunteer opportunities, the opportunity is clear: help people do good together, and that good will ripple outward—into the workplace, the community, and beyond.
