Community, Part 2: Why Are We In Shambles?

• • When is the last time you participated in a social experience that wasn’t for your own entertainment? Something like a community organization meeting, volunteering on a project, or hosting friends for dinner or brunch? How often do you do things like this? If you asked your parents or your grandparents the same questions, how would their answers differ? What Happened to Community?Before I go any further, let me make this clear: I’m not big on rose-colored glasses or over-hyping the past. Some of us tend to fall into the “good old days” ditch, while others of us tend to fall into the “everything was awful in the past and we’re so much better now” ditch. My aim is to zoom out enough to learn objectively from what our fathers and grandfathers experienced, in order to remember and bring forward what was beneficial while leaving behind what’s best to leave behind. With that being said, I think it’s clear how generations before us were better at community in a lot of ways. Organizations were generally alive and well, people spent time investing in their communities, and they knew the people who lived in their communities in a more real way. Older people now are likely to have more closer friends and to feel good about the quality of those friendships than the younger population. 1 (#footnote-1) • • This graph from the U.S. Surgeon General shows how social engagement has declined from 2003 to 2020. Hours per month are shown on the vertical axis, and year on the horizontal. We don’t have to look very far to see how much has changed.2 (#footnote-2) Most community organizations, if they still exist at all, are dwindling in membership and the average age of members has skyrocketed. Even when we look at friends making plans, it’s become commonplace for folks to cancel because they “just don’t feel like going anywhere” or they “need to focus on taking care of themselves and maintaining their boundaries.” What if we’ve over-boundary-ed ourselves into dangerous isolation? The boundaries that were supposed to “protect our peace” may be the very walls suffocating us. Some of my millennial friends have brought some stats to my attention about how Gen Z is drinking less alcohol and waiting longer to get their drivers’ licenses (the share of 16-year-olds with a driver’s license was 50% in 1983; in 2022 it was only 25%)3 (#footnote-3). While, in theory, there could be some good in these trends, I fear that a closer look would indicate there are more negatives. It would be one thing if, instead of drinking at the bar with friends, modern college kids were getting together to play pickleball or work on their resumes or start a book club (as many older folks may hope for when they see those stats). Instead, the trends show my generation is simply not spending as much time with other people in person, with or without alcohol. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not arguing we should all go back to partying as the preferred way to socialize (remember the rose-colored glasses point I made earlier?), but rather that this trend comes with some baggage. And, that’s not to say every Gen Z’er who chooses to drink less, or not at all, is isolated and alone, or that people who aren’t drinking would be if they hung out with people more often. As with most trends, there’s rarely one cause or one result; everything is connected. Even given the complexity of these trends, one thing is clear: Gen Z is spending more time alone and more time on screens (often those two go hand-in-hand) than previous generations at our age. Instinctively, we know this isn’t good for us. When we use the litmus test of what people regret when they near the end of their lives, can you imagine someone saying “man, I just wish I spent more time alone and on my phone”? I don’t think so. Why, then, do we keep seeing community suffer and decline? The Easy Road… Doesn’t Lead Us Where We Want To GoAt the risk of sounding a bit old and crochety… it seems so much of this comes down to the damn smartphones. More specifically, how we’ve used them and how we’ve allowed them to use us. At this point, there’s an overwhelming amount of evidence to show the addictive and negative tendencies of many of the apps and sites we use (Jonathan Haidt (https://www.anxiousgeneration.com/), whom I’ve referenced before, is one of the more prominent advocates and writers in this space, and he’s analyzed and summarized a great deal of this research in his book The Anxious Generation). Yet, we don’t need piles of data to know, in our own experience, how easy it is to pick up the phone and scroll instead of calling a friend to have a meaningful conversation, to fire off an angry comment on a screen rather than respond thoughtfully when sitting across the table from someone we disagree with, to curl up in our room with our headphones in than to get out of the house and go on a walk. Yet, perhaps underneath the smartphone issue, the root of the problem is our very human nature. We want what’s easy, the path of least resistance, the most efficient route possible. We hate to deliberately do something difficult, to take the path where we have to work a little bit more, to take the long way around. My father-in-law recently shared a story with me about his own father: while many other farmers in the area were using side-by-sides to check their cattle fences, his dad was still throwing a few posts and some twine over his shoulder and walking the perimeter. “Why is Dad still out trudging around in the hills, taking all that time, when he could check and fix fences so much faster with a vehicle like everyone else?” Well, my father-in-law reflected, now his dad is pushing 90 yet still healthy and capable of handling most of the farm tasks, and his decision long ago to keep doing things “the hard way” has most certainly played a role in his current vitality. It seems to me this same lesson can be applied to our social lives. When everyone else is retreating to the ease of digital communication, what might it look like for us to keep exercising the muscle of real-life interaction? Is our love for efficiency and ease making us more susceptible to the dangers of new, shiny technology without consideration for the trade-offs? The good news is, if it’s not all someone else’s or the technology’s fault, we can actually do something about it. More on that in the next installment, but before we wrap up here, I think there’s one more thing to consider. Organizational Stagnation… It’s Not Just Gen Z’s FaultOne of the most common areas I see the decline in community most obviously, and I hear it complained about by older generations most often, is in organizations. In my circles, it’s places like the Farm Bureau, local commodity groups, and even churches. I often hear comments from older generations, who often built those organizations to be what they are today, lamenting the lack of young members. My generation is often criticized for not caring, not showing up, and not putting in effort. If we’re honest with ourselves, these things are true more than we’d like to admit. Yet, we all have the responsibility to look in the mirror when things we’re in charge of aren’t going well, and I fear some entrenched organizational leaders can become blind to the changing needs of generations and the very organization they lead. How often do we see leaders remain in an officer position for decades, failing to make room for younger folks who are excited and ready to take on more responsibility? Yes, there are times we must wait for our turn, but how long should an emerging leader be expected to wait to exercise their leadership before they move on to another group or area of their life where their energy is more appreciated and better utilized? Along with this tendency of older generations to hold on to positions, I also see a tendency to keep doing the same things—whether it’s how meetings are run, what events to host, or any other routine—even if the original purpose no longer exists. For all our flaws, I believe one of Gen Z’s greatest gifts is our desire for purpose; if your meeting is a meeting just to have a meeting, we’re not interested. We shouldn’t be condemned for that, yet often it seems we are. In some ways, it feels like we can’t win. If we show up, we’re told things have to continue as-is because “this is how we’ve always done it,” yet if we don’t show up, we’re told we’re lazy and apathetic. The membership trends are clear: something has to change. Share We know we need each other. We know we’re losing the connections our parents and grandparents relied on for healthy lives, physically and mentally and emotionally. We know our current digital addictions are leading us down a path we don’t want to see the end of. Yet, simply knowing these truths won’t do anything for us if we don’t do something for ourselves—and each other. Next time, we’ll wrap up this series on community with an exploration of some of the ways we can stop the spiral of our ever-declining social lives. One Thing Differently:What is one way you have been personally guilty of taking the easy path in your social life? Who can you look to as an example or support to challenge yourself again, instead? Leave a comment 1 (#footnote-anchor-1)How many close friends do Americans have? | Pew Research Center 2 (#footnote-anchor-2)National Trends for Social Connection 3 (#footnote-anchor-3)Generation Z is less likely to have a driver’s license.