Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community

“Machers” are people who spend time in formal organizations. They are typically well educated with high incomes. “Schmoozers” (not used here with a negative connotation) are those who engage in informal conversations and social contact. More common than machers, schmoozers engage with others as friends, not citizens. While women have taken on the role of machers upon entry to the professional workforce, they also engage in more informal social contact than men. Putnam stipulates that the two types of social contact, formal and informal, overlap to some extent. Focusing on informal contacts, Putnam highlights the common practice of visiting friends in the US. However, he identifies the declining rate at which Americans interact informally.

In the mid-1970s, the average American entertained friends in their home 14 or 15 times a year versus only eight times by the late 1990s (98). He remarks that the “pace of decline in social visiting [...] has been extraordinary” (100). Within families, there has been a decrease in those who dine together in this period as well. The percentage of families who vacationed together dropped from 53% in 1976 to 38% in 1997, a sign of “rapidly loosening family bonds” (101).