Bowling alone nonsense

“The distinctive effect of technology has been to enable us to get entertainment and information while remaining entirely alone,” Robert Putnam, a public policy professor at Harvard University and author of “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community,” recently told the New York Times. “It's fundamentally bad because the lack of social contact, the social isolation means that we don't share information and values and outlook that we should.”

Maybe so, but one reason I stopped going to movie theaters was that the people sitting behind me invariably wanted to share their values with me while I was trying to watch the movie.

Putnam mistakes physical isolation for social isolation. The truth is, we're gathering together more than ever, just not physically. An Ericsson executive recently told me that his kids often hang out with their friends without leaving home; they simply go online. (As a parent, would you rather they were at a bowling alley?) We're not sharing information? Come on. There are hermits on the Internet publishing fan fiction episodes of “M*A*S*H”. That's too much sharing.

And anyway, let's not knock isolation. Caller ID, voice mail. These are the technologies that build walls between us, and thank God for them. Last fall, a new company called Pinger launched a service that allows users to send voice mail — to leave voice mail messages without calling the recipient and taking the risk that they'll answer their phone. The company sells this as a simpler alternative to text messaging, but let's be honest: The real killer app here is being able to talk to people without having to engage in conversation.

Rather than hampering our interactions, technology is allowing us to better manage them. Is bowling becoming less popular or are Putnam's bowling buddies just seeing his name pop up on their Caller IDs and opting not to pick up?