Too many loners, not enough joiners

Editor’s Note: This essay appeared in Cognoscenti’s newsletter of ideas and opinions, delivered weekly on Sundays. To become a subscriber, sign up here.

“Social connection is as essential to our long-term survival as food and water.”

So says the May 2023 report released by the U.S. surgeon general’s office. The report found that the nation’s “epidemic” of loneliness and isolation can increase the risk of premature death on a level akin to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It also determined that Americans spend 20 fewer hours a month with their friends now than they did two decades ago.

Maybe the report caught your attention too?

It sent me back to the work of Robert Putnam, the Harvard political scientist (and subject of a recent documentary) who wrote the 2000 book “Bowling Alone.” His thesis — which was considered pretty radical at the time — was that “social bonds are the most powerful predictor of life satisfaction.”

I listened to a long New York Times interview with Putnam on the drive to visit my parents this summer. Putnam reflected on how his research can help us make sense of our politically polarized environment, but also on how his work, though widely cited and admired, hasn’t resulted in real-world “success.” We’re as politically polarized as we’ve been in 125 years, and Putnam thinks that our lack of social capital undermines American democracy. In short: too many loners, not enough joiners.

All this brings me to Brooklyn, the location of my first book club.

I was one of a handful of well-educated, gainfully employed, twenty-something women in the group and our first book was Zadie Smith’s debut novel, “White Teeth.” The book, also published in 2000, was an immediate bestseller; it also won a gazillion literary awards for Smith, then just a tender 24 years old.

I’ve read plenty of Smith’s work over the years and loved it — from the Boston-based “On Beauty,” to the continent-jumping “Swing Time.” “Intimations,” her book of essays penned in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic still sits on my nightside table.

After “White Teeth,” Smith went on to be one of the most respected writers of her generation. I, however, still can’t tell you a thing about the novel.

That’s because the afternoon before the first meeting of my first-ever book club, I bought the CliffsNotes version at a Barnes & Noble. This is embarrassing on several levels. First, was I that self conscious (and self important) about having not read the book that it was necessary to fake it? Apparently. Perhaps even more unfortunate, that one experience put me off book clubs. I decided the expectation to read a particular book by a particular time was annoying and promptly labeled myself “not a joiner.”