I was talking to my pal Mike Wagner today. In passing he mentioned that a good number of his reader comments come from folks in Europe. "So I can't complain that I'm stuck in Des Moines, Iowa any more. With my blog I'm not stuck anywhere," Mike said....


Contrast Mike's perspective with a story I read last week in the Washington Post, Social Isolation Growing in U.S., Study Says. Poynter's Al Tompkins commented on it today, saying, "This story says something really sad about the times in which we live."
According to the study, one-fourth of Americans say they have no one with whom they can discuss personal issues. "That is almost triple the number who said the same thing in 1985. How many people would you say are in your closest circle of confidants? The national average, now, is two," Al writes.
Adds Lynn Smith-Lovin, a Duke University sociologist who helped conduct the study, as quoted in the WaPo article, "There really is less of a safety net of close friends and confidants."
Compared with 1985, nearly 50 percent more people in 2004 reported that their spouse is the only person they can confide in. But if people face trouble in that relationship, or if a spouse falls sick, that means these people have no one to turn to for help, Smith-Lovin said.
"We know these close ties are what people depend on in bad times," she said. "We're not saying people are completely isolated. They may have 600 friends on Facebook.com and e-mail 25 people a day, but they are not discussing matters that are personally important."
Here's what I wonder: Are social ties really fraying? Or are they just shifting, and reweaving themselves in a different pattern?
We are living in interesting times, in which the very definition of "social circle" is shifting, expanding, and growing. Our "friends" don't fit the typical mold of bowling pals, maybe. But they are friends nevertheless, and it feels shortsighted to suggest that the social fabric of America (or the world) is fraying, when it seems, as Mike suggests, to be doing quite the opposite. "With my blog I'm not stuck anywhere."
In the WaPo piece, University of Toronto sociologist Barry Wellman said people's overall ties are actually growing, compared with previous decades, thanks in part to the Internet. Wellman has calculated that the average person today has about 250 ties with friends and relatives.
"I don't see this as the end of the world but part of a larger puzzle," Wellman said. "My guess is people only have so much energy, and right now they are switching around a number of networks.... We are getting a division of labor in relationships. Some people give emotional aid, some people give financial aid."
Wellman's interpretation feels more reasonable to me. But what do you think? Is your world a richer place? A lonelier place? Or a combination of the two?