No longer bowling alone
IN 2023, then-U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called loneliness an epidemic. In an advisory on the issue, he wrote, “Loneliness is far more than just a bad feeling—it harms both individual and societal health.” Recent surveys have shown that almost half of the American adult population report experiencing loneliness, with the highest rates among young adults. Additionally, a Pew Research Center survey suggests that while men and women report feeling similar levels of loneliness, men are less likely to turn to their networks for support and connection.
The internet, too, while offering a virtual form of connection, comes with risks, especially for young people. As social interaction has shifted to take place increasingly online in the 21st century, in-person interactions may have suffered. But decades before the current loneliness epidemic and the rise of social media and the internet, a social scientist named Robert D. Putnam at Harvard Kennedy School predicted and identified these trends and influenced the thinkers and policymakers, including Murthy, who have worked to address them.
The power of networks and relationships
Putnam brought the concept of social capital to attention through his work in the 1990s and 2000s. His scholarship helped lead to an understanding of why relationships and community are essential for well-functioning societies. And he is cited repeatedly in Murthy’s 2023 advisory on the epidemic of loneliness.
Social capital is a concept in sociology and economics that describes the power and value of networks and relationships. Putnam made it prominent and popularized it through his research and his seminal 2000 book, “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.”
Putnam, the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy, emeritus, at HKS, defined social capital as the networks, norms, and trust that enable people to work together more effectively to pursue shared objectives. His research led him to conclude that social capital in the United States was declining, most vividly symbolized by the demise of traditional civic and community groups—such as the bowling league he had joined as a teenager in Ohio. Putnam distinguished between what he called bonding social capital (strong ties, within a family and among close friends) and bridging social capital (ties across diverse social groups, which are vital for societal cooperation).
His scholarship on the importance of relationships is just as relevant—if not more so—today, in an era in which social media and AI can increase people’s sense of isolation from their communities, and in which people feel deeply divided. Putnam went on to develop proposals for reviving social trust to reconnect Americans, spelled out in his 2003 book, “Better Together: Restoring the American Community,” coauthored with Lewis Feldstein, and “The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again,” written with Shaylyn Romney Garrett, and published in 2020.
In addition to his scholarship, Putnam created a community of action through the Saguaro Seminar at HKS, which convened experts from academia, the arts, business, and government to strengthen civic engagement and measure and analyze social capital in the United States.
A legacy of bipartisan policy impact
As Putnam said at a White House event in 2000, “Connectedness really matters.” His ideas influenced policymakers on the left and the right. Former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama all met with or cited Putnam as they created policies to try to rebuild community trust in America, and Putnam became a respected and outspoken public voice on repairing social divisions.
For his work “deepening our understanding of community in America,” President Obama awarded Putnam the National Humanities Medal in 2013. “Examining how patterns of engagement divide and unite, Dr. Putnam’s writing and research inspire us to improve institutions that make society worth living in, and his insights challenge us to be better citizens,” a statement from the White House read.
The concepts Putnam studied and popularized have inspired other thinkers on the issues of isolation and social media. For example, the social scientist Jonathan Haidt examined the increasing social isolation and anxiety of children and teenagers in his book “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness” (2024). Haidt writes about the risk of cell phones in schools and argues for collective action to limit them.
With awareness growing of the risks of social media for young people, at least 22 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., have enacted or proposed legislation to ban social media and cell phones in schools during the school day. Other countries have banned or restricted cell phone use in schools, including the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Australia, Finland, China, Ghana, Rwanda, and Uganda.
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Putting social capital into practice
ONE HKS ALUM who has worked on repairing divisions and strengthening social capital is Mathieu Lefèvre MPA 2003. After the June 2016 assassination of Jo Cox, a British member of Parliament, Lefèvre was inspired to cofound More in Common, a nonprofit that focuses on what drives people apart and how they can find common ground. Lefèvre says he was inspired to start the organization after two key events: the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe—which inspired deep divides in public opinion—and the assassination of Cox. “We founded More in Common in memory of Jo’s first speech in the House of Commons,” he said, “in which she said she believes people have ‘more in common than what separates them.’”
The nonprofit examines polarization and why it happens. “We try to understand how people think about things like ingroup and outgroup dynamics, trust, being heard or left behind,” Lefèvre has said.
“We try to understand how people think about things like ingroup and outgroup dynamics, trust, being heard or left behind.”
More in Common conducts work in seven countries across three continents. In the UK, they have partnered with the Jo Cox Foundation on the Great Get Together, an annual event designed to unite communities. More than 97,000 people have attended hundreds of Great Get Together events across the UK. After these events, communities experienced a 40% increase in volunteers for local projects.
(Read about Lefèvre’s work in the Spring 2025 issue of HKS Magazine.)
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Banner image by Joe Raedke/Getty Images; faculty portrait by Martha Stewart