People who say that TV is their “primary form of entertainment” volunteer and work on community projects less often, attend fewer dinner parties and fewer club meetings, spend less time visiting friends, entertain at home less, picnic less, are less interested in politics, give blood less often, write friends less regularly, make fewer long-distance calls, send fewer greeting cards and less email, and express more road rage than demographically matched people who differ only in saying that TV is not their primary focus of entertainment.  TV dependence is associated not merely with less involvement in community life, but with less social communication in all its forms – written, oral or electronic.  This simple question turns out to distinguish those Americans who are most socially isolated from those who are most involved in their communities….  Nothing – not low education, not full-time work, not long commutes in urban agglomerations, not poverty or financial distress – is more broadly associated with civic disengagement and social disconnection than is dependance on television for entertainment.

~ Robert D. Putnam, Author of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community

This is a preview for the upcoming series on building community.  So often, we feel alone, even when we are surrounded by others.  There are so many reasons we feel disconnected from each other, but we must begin to renew and foster our ties to the other humans living together with us on this Earth if we are to live deeply and joyfully.