Quote by Annie Leonard

“Meanwhile, increased unhappiness results from our deteriorating social relationships. Relationships with family, peers, colleagues, neighbors, and community members have proven over and over to be the biggest determining factor in our happiness, once our basic needs are met. Yet because we’re working more than ever before to afford and maintain all this Stuff, we’re spending more time alone and less time with family, with friends, with neighbors. We’re also spending less time on civic engagement and community building. In Bowling Alone, Harvard professor Robert Putnam chronicles the decline in participation in social and civic groups, ranging from bowling leagues to parent-teacher associations to political organizations. We end up with a situation in which we have fewer friends, fewer supportive neighbors, less robust communities, and near total apathy about our role within a democratic political system. As a result, our communities can’t provide the things they used to. One-quarter of Americans now say they have no one in their lives with whom they can discuss personal trouble; that number has doubled since 1985, when far fewer people reported being socially isolated. Alongside emotional support, logistical support has dried up too: if you need child care, help moving, a ride to the airport, food delivered to your door when you’re sick, someone to bring in the mail or walk the dog or water your plants when you travel, or a group with whom to play a game of basketball, softball, or poker, you’re likely out of luck. Increasingly we’re all too busy and/or too isolated for these things. Since we still need all these things, the market has filled the void. We can now hire someone to watch our pets, coach us through a rough breakup, or move our Stuff. We pay for child care and activities to entertain our kids. We can even buy computer games that simulate sports with live opponents. This is commodification at work: the process of turning things that were once public amenities, neighborly activities, or the role of friends into privately purchasable Stuff or services—i.e., commodities. Systems thinkers often talk about negative feedback loops—problems that cause an effect that adds to the original problem. For instance, when global temperatures rise, ice caps melt, decreasing the planet’s ability to reflect sunlight off that bright snow, so global temperatures rise further. The same thing is happening with our melting communities. We have to work harder to pay for all the services that neighbors, friends, and public agencies used to provide, so we’re even more harried and less able to contribute to the community. It’s a downward spiral.”

Quote by Annie Leonard