HUFFINGTON
09.15.13
THE BIG QUESTIONS
people of vastly different backgrounds and perspectives, they’ll
continue the typical college traditions of late nights, long conversations and self-discovery. And when
they graduate, they will face a challenge much steeper than any college
exam or doctoral dissertation —
carrying that spirit of inquiry with
them into the real world.
Statistical and anecdotal evidence suggests this is easier said
of France, often credited with
incubating philosophical discussions that ushered in the Age
of Reason, or the cafe culture, a
backdrop for the Existentialist
musings of Jean-Paul Sartre and
his contemporaries.
Of course, it’s much easier to
measure TV-watching than America’s intellectual engagement and
introspection. But for some time,
scholars and observers have been
“THESE CONVERSATIONS ARE WHAT COLLEGE STUDENTS
ARE MISSING, THEY’RE WHAT PEOPLE AT WORK ARE MISSING,
THEY’RE WHAT WE’RE ALL MISSING.”
than done. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which
takes an annual measure of how
Americans use their time, the
average person spends about 45
minutes daily “socializing and
communicating.” Watching TV,
meanwhile, accounts for nearly
three hours of the average American’s day. And today’s laptopscattered coffee shops don’t seem
to foster environments of conversation and debate, like the salons
documenting, often with alarm,
a shift from a society structured
around social gatherings to a culture of technology-driven individualism — or, depending on your
point of view, isolation. Writing
more than a decade ago in Bowling Alone, Harvard public policy
professor Robert D. Putnam documented the erosion of Americans’
participation in community clubs
— like bowling leagues and civic
organizations — and the disengagement from society and the
self that it fostered. More recently
in Alone Together, Massachusetts