In his 2000 book “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community,” political scientist Robert Putnam writes that, “American history carefully examined is a story of ups and downs in civic engagement, not just downs — a story of collapse and of renewal.”
If you asked Americans today, they would almost certainly respond with near-unanimity that we are currently in a ‘down’ period of social interaction. The United States, once bound by neighborhood ties and close friendships, is now in what the U.S. Surgeon General calls an “epidemic of loneliness and isolation.” According to Putnam, only half of us have more than three close friends, and we’re spending more time alone and less time together.
But all hope is not lost, for once in a while we hear a story like that of John Nelson Bradbury.
A few weeks ago, the 80-year-old resident of Mount Pearl, Newfoundland, Canada went viral for sending an inspiring — and sappy — message to his intramural softball team. It would have been hard for Bradbury to imagine that the text he wrote at 2:30 a.m., telling his teammates, “it’s all of you who keep me going and give me the reason to get out of bed in the morning,” would end up touching millions of hearts, but herein lies the power of the internet. A screenshot of the text was posted to TikTok and ultimately gained more than 15 million views.
Still, heartbreakingly sentimental viral videos are a dime a dozen, so what makes this one significant? The answer, unsurprisingly, is that it’s not. It’s an affecting validation of the belief that sports can bring us together, sure, but there’s nothing in it that separates it from the many similar stories that have resulted from social-recreational activities.
The more important point is that where there are humans connecting through sweat, late night text messages and softball, there is confirmation that we are still beings who rely on each other to survive. This may seem a simultaneously obvious and hyperbolic conclusion, so to understand its significance we must first appraise the state of social participation today.
Though the COVID-19 pandemic certainly accelerated the epidemic of isolation — rates of general loneliness shot up at the pandemic’s onset, as did mental health issues and even drug overdoses — it is not the sole culprit. There are other reasons, and most of them relate to who controls our two greatest currencies: money and attention. Ever since some savvy businessmen realized that everything could be made more effortlessly accessible (and that the easier things got, the more our indolence would grow), we have inevitably been on a spiral that ends with Americans as the obese, screen-addicted characters of “WALL-E.”
Is it even logical to say that softball could be the answer to our problems in a world where more people talk to AI and fewer talk to each other? Perhaps not. It’s a deep-seated issue, and it may be too late to do anything at all. But if there’s any hope of a rebound for our society — any chance of returning to one of Putnam’s ‘high’ points — it will start on our courts, fields and diamonds. A trend may already be forming — adult Americans showed a 4% increase in willingness to participate in a recreational sport this summer compared to 2023 — and with recreational sports organizations like Volo Sports expanding, opportunities for reconnection are growing.
It doesn’t have to be through sports — millions of hobbies can bring people together — but physical recreation has bonded communities for as long as society has existed, so why stop now? If you can play, play; if you can cheer, cheer. Be like John Nelson Bradbury. Don’t let them win.
