Decline in social interaction

Over the last three decades we have seen a major shift in the amount of social activity and engagement. The advances in technology have shifted leisure time from being a social activity to more of a private activity. The primary culprit of this shift is television. Television hit the scene around the late 40’s and was being mass marketed within ten years of its introduction to the market. Americans average forty hours of television watching per week. In addition to this is the evolution of capitalism converting the traditional civic organizations like the YMCA or the boy scouts, to the local fitness center and more focused organizations like grassroots. With the evolution of capitalism came the industrial revolution which in turn produced mass production. Mass production allows large organizations to conduct activities on a much larger scale with the use of machines to complete all of the busy work such as mailings. While the level of efficiency far surpasses that of the indi...