Lab #6

There are many factors leading to a less friendly-oriented society. Here are a few reasons why I believe our social capital is declining.

1. Think of the things people need to do to simply live. Everyone's time for fun is steadily declining, and people don’t have time to give attention to every individual they know in their life. Considering all the networking niches on the internet, you’d guess people would have more friends with MySpace, Facebook, etc. People become friends because of commonalities, and generally our commonalities tend to stem from the media and become dependant on it everyday. Moreover, it's not so much an issue of media consuming your mind that's the main cause--it's the trend of what's being shown.

2. I notice that people today are generally closed off from the world around them, and are only interested in one thing—to remain in their own protective shell, closed off from every single idea which seeks to threaten their current way of life. In a world of ideas which are constantly becoming more diverse, we can’t afford to become intolerant of other people’s ideas, simply because they are different from our own. No two conflicting ideologies in history have coexisted while being simultaneously beneficial to the progression of society. This is why social capital is so important in the first place—to create a society where people are able to come together and discuss their ideas in a positive way, without fear of prejudice or rejection.

3. The main reason for the implication of fewer friends in social capital is because when it comes to meeting new people, we are generally restricted to a small pool of people who belong to a social group. Whether it’s the artsy kids, or the sports fanatics, we generally focus only on the differences between people whose commonalities are rarely looked at because of a focus on the “group” mentality. In the end, we are much more alike than group-related stereotypes would allow us to believe.