Good point. I just finished a social history of Montreal in the 40's and 50's. TV had a lot to do with the closing down of cabarets and theatres.
You didn't have to go out for entertainment anymore. But the latter is inherently more social than TV.
Re:Google Glass
by thenonsequitur on Tuesday February 26, 2013 @02:03PM
(#5287638)
Some of what Putnam reported was flawed, and his book that you cited was interpretative. These "actual mesasurements" that you speak of do not show that in-person social engagement has been in decline -- that is Putnam's interpretation of the data. Others have different interpretations (which I happen to agree with much more). For example, see http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/96apr/kicking/ki....
See also Sherry Turkle[1], Nicholas Carr[2], etc.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Alone-Together-Expect-Technology-Other... [2] http://www.amazon.com/Shallows-What-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp...
You're not offering anything more than an assertion that they're wrong, though. That is, you're using the same anecdata standard of evidence that they are: "My friends and I have cell phones but we talk to each other..."
More serious thinkers than you and I have made actual measurements that show our frequency of in-person, in-public type socializing and civic engagement really has been in long-term decline for many decades. VHS would be one of the culprits, yes, and now so would smart-phones, tablets, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone