Community

Is society today too isolated?  Is there less community spirit than is healthy?  Someone brought these questions up yesterday.  Another person answered yes to these questions, and said she thought the Internet was the main cause - people spending too much time online instead of interacting with each other. There's also a book on the same subject, called "Bowling Alone", which blames technology for isolation.

What are your thoughts on it?  I disagree that technology breaks up community.  I think it actually enables many people to have close relationships with friends and family that live far away, or have work schedules that don't allow them to spend enough time together.

Community and togetherness seem to be just habits that societies either have or don't have, and there doesn't seem to be any concrete 'culprit' for lack of it.  It is just that the habit needs to be developed.  For example, in our city, there used to be a coffee shop called "Penny Lane" where you could meet all kinds of people.  Everyone was very friendly - strangers would come up to you and challenge you to a friendly game of chess or Go.  And once you are in such an atmosphere, you too feel like being friendly and talking to new people and learning more about them.  Now the coffee shop is gone, and another called "The Laughing Goat" is there, and it is not the same at all.  But there's no real concrete reason for it.