Who in America is bowling alone?

Eventually, his father sold the business to him in the late ’80s. In 1995, Sleek moved the business from Jerome, population 1,000, to the “big” town of Somerset, population 12,000. This was the very same year Harvard professor Robert Putnam wrote a paper and then published a book called Bowling Alone, a groundbreaking examination of American life that illustrated a culture not just in the throes of loneliness but turning still further inward.

Putnam argued that America’s social fabric — that glue of reliance and aspiration that formed communities in this country since Alexis de Tocqueville observed it with awe — had frayed significantly.

He wasn’t wrong. Americans don’t join things in the way we used to. Fraternal organizations such as the Lions Club, the Elks, and Kiwanis don’t have robust membership like they used to, nor do civic and faith-based groups such as the Knights of Columbus.

Church attendance is also falling. In 1995, Putnam was just scratching at the surface of what was to come with a loneliness problem in the U.S. Twenty-seven years later, it is a full-blown epidemic, especially in our most populous urban areas. The latest U.S. Census Bureau survey shows 60% report spending less time with friends, family, or anyone, for that matter.

However, Putnam wasn’t 100% right, either.