Lost and Saved... Again: The Moral Panic about the Loss of Community

The Recurring Moral Panic of the "Loss of Community"

• Authors Keith N. Hampton ($Michigan\,State\,University$) and Barry Wellman ($NetLab\,Network,\,Ryerson\,University$) address why every generation believes relationships were stronger in the past.

• This "moral panic" is based on a selective perception of the present and an idealization of "traditional community."

• Lamenting the loss of community dims awareness of powerful inequalities and cleavages that have pervaded human society throughout history.

• It favors deterministic models over a nuanced understanding of how network affordances contribute to different outcomes.

• The beȖtes noirs (perceived causes of decay) vary by era and have included:   * Industrialization   * Bureaucratization   * Urbanization   * Capitalism   * Socialism   * Technological developments

• Diverse commentators over history have tabbed these causes, including Thomas Jefferson ($1784$), Karl Marx ($1852$), Louis Wirth ($1938$), Maurice Stein ($1960$), Robert Bellah et al. ($1996$), and Tom Brokaw ($1998$).

• Since the advent of the internet, observers have seized on digital technology as the latest cause of lost community, with panic becoming acute regarding social media and mobile devices.

Contemporary Critiques of Digital Technology and Community Demise

• Sherry Turkle ($2015$) warns about the decline of conversation and meaningful in-person contact.

• Jean Twenge ($2017$) identifies the introduction of the iPhone in $2007$ as the specific beginning of societal demise.   * Twenge is concerned with the decline of face-to-face contact and individualism afforded by mobile devices.   * She expresses concern that "parental watchfulness" has smothered useful indiscretion.   * She associates reduced teenage sex, pregnancy, and alcohol use with signs of a technologically induced problem, claiming youth are "developmentally delayed."

• Taylor Dotson ($2017$), in his book Technically Together, argues community has worsened due to Facebook and mobile devices.   * Dotson blames "social theory" and specifically the theory of "networked individualism."   * Networked individualism: The relational turn from bounded, densely knit local groups to multiple, partial, often far-flung social networks ($Rainie\,and\,Wellman\,2012$).   * Dotson suggests sociologists should engineer social change through design rather than just describing current trends.   * Dotson alleges that Hampton and Wellman engage in "implicit form of political advocacy" by calling for citizens to adapt to dominant technologies.

Imagined Communities and the Reality of Pre-Industrial Social Structures

• North Americans often imagine a community organization based on dense connections around the home and small-town life (e.g., bonding on porches).

• Pre-Industrial Revolution ($19^{th}\,\text{century}$): Most lived surrounded by relatives and neighbors who shared beliefs, backgrounds, and daily labor ($Durkheim\,[1893]\,1993;\,Tönnies\,[1887]\,1957$).

• Advantages of traditional structures:   * Abundant companionship and aid.   * Emergencies were easily identified, and help was reliable.

• Drawbacks of traditional structures:   * High degree of conformity required.   * Rigid hierarchies governing communication.   * Creation of "echo chambers" ($Sunstein\,2009$) where beliefs were amplified in a closed system.   * High informal watchfulness ($Twenge\,2017$).   * The primordial "filter bubble" ($Pariser\,2012$) consisting of tradition, church, and kin, limiting exposure to external information.   * Organised and passionate "communal justice," such as lynch mobs, which cannot be swayed by "conversation skills" ($p.\,111$).

Historical Precedents: From Ibn Khaldun to Anti-Urbanism

• The trend of concerning disconnection and isolation is ancient.

• Ibn Khaldun ($[1377]\,2015$), in Kitab al-’Ibar (Book of Lessons), contended that as societies progress from tribal to urban life, social solidarity (‘‘asabiyah’’) weakens.

• Thomas Hobbes ($1651$), in Leviathan, warned that rapid social change in England was creating loneliness and a ‘‘war of all against all.’’

• Thomas Jefferson ($1784$), at his Monticello plantation, wrote Notes on the State of Virginia, claiming communal bonds are not viable in industrial cities. He called the mobs of great cities "sores" on the strength of the human body.

• Contemporary "new urbanism" ($Dotson\,2017$) is described as a fa%ade driven by self-selection and environmental choice ($Michelson\,1977$).

• S. D. Clark ($1966$) noted that previous generations found the city depraved but learned to love it, only to then view suburbia as a place of "slavish conformity" and a "fetish of togetherness."

Network Affordances and The Role of Technology

• Hampton and Wellman argue against technological determinism.

• It is not the technology itself (the object) that changes community, but the structure of the networks ($Gibson\,1979;\,Norman\,1988$).

• Outcomes vary based on people's traits, skills, culture, and institutions ($religion,\,government$).

• Densely knit, closed networks afford less diversity and maneuverability than loosely knit ones ($Burt\,2001$).

• Earlier technology (limited travel/communication) fostered local networks that persisted over a lifetime.

• Contemporary behaviors, such as living alone, are artifacts of social structure (delayed marriage for education/economics), not just smartphones ($Klinenberg\,2012$).

The Evolution of Social Ties: Two Major Shifts

• First Shift: Networked Individualism   * Result of increased mobility starting with the Industrial Revolution.   * Facilitated by telephones, steamships, railroads, cars, planes, and digital media.   * Allows people to escape the bonds of encapsulated social ties of kinship, locality, and occupation ($Simmel\,[1903]\,1950$).   * Provides opportunities for "supportive social relations in multiple contexts that do not strongly overlap."   * The "space of flows" superceded the "space of places" ($Castells\,1996$).   * Note: People continue to find companionship in sparsely knit networks ($Lu\,and\,Hampton\,2017$).

• Second Shift: Persistent and Pervasive Community   * Result of "relational persistence" and "pervasive awareness" ($Hampton\,2016$).   * Resistance of social ties is enabled by permanent email addresses, mobile phone numbers, and social media "friends" lists.   * Counterforce to mobility: Links lives across generations and lifetimes similar to traditional communities ($Wang,\,Zhang,\,and\,Wellman\,2018$).

Network Affordances: Persistence and Awareness

• Pervasive awareness: The ambient nature of digital communication where sharing trivial information (photos of meals, presence at events) conveys subtle knowledge of everyday interests.

• Increased network diversity: A natural byproduct of pervasive awareness and persistence ($Chen\,2013;\,Hampton\,et\,al.\,2011$).

• Visibility of resources: Makes visible diversity and activities that were previously overlooked.

• Understanding diverse points of view: Awareness of newfound diversity can counter intolerant echo chambers ($Hampton\,2018$).

• Note: Self-selection into online echo chambers ($Del\,Vicario\,et\,al.\,2016$) or filter bubbles ($Bakshy\,et\,al.\,2015$) pales in comparison to historical insular communities.

The Downsides and Risks of Networked and Engineered Communities

• Disconnection and isolation: While most thrive, some struggle with disconnection. Older adults in East York, for example, often do not exhibit networked individualism ($Wang,\,Zhang,\,and\,Wellman\,2018$).

• Cost of Caring $2.0$: Heightened awareness of network life events/stressful activities in others’ lives can increase an individual’s own stress ($Hampton,\,Lu,\,and\,Shin\,2016$).

• Silencing of debate: Awareness of dissonant information/opinions can reduce perceived homophily and silence democratic debate to avoid perceived risk ($Hampton,\,Shin,\,and\,Lu\,2017$).

• Resource exhaustion: Increased awareness and drawing on informal support can exhaust both resources and providers ($Hampton\,and\,Ling\,2013$).

• Mob Morality: The reorganization of community into persistent relationships brings back "expedient and repressive sanctions."   * Examples include "drought-shaming" of water users ($Milbrandt\,2017$) and "doxing" white supremacists ($Ellis\,2017$).   * Informal watchfulness results in a speed and severity of punishment that may supplant institutional, formal law.