Bowling Alone By Anna Quindlen Summary

Anna Quindlen’s “Doing Nothing is Something”, “Bowling Alone” by Robert Putnam, and “The End of Solitude” by William Deresiewicz all discuss the different opinions between the individual and the community. Each argument states a different take on the matter, but everything comes down to the simple contrast between the good and bad of distancing yourself from others. “Doing Nothing is Something”, Bowling Alone”, and “The End of Solitude” all present justifiable facts about spending time alone, though each argument is in stark contrast to the others.

One thing each argument has in common is their feelings towards technology. Anna Quindlen’s “Doing Nothing is Something” interprets that children should be forced to spend time alone simply being

Studies have also shown that if a child is exposed to technology at a young age to satisfy their boredom, they often have a lack of creativity. Sharing the same belief about the negativity technology brings, William Deresiewicz and Robert Putnam, authors of “The End of Solitude” and “Bowling Alone”, also agree that technology impacts a person's life in a negative way. Deresiewicz focuses a portion of his argument on the point that many people have consumed themselves in social media due to the fact that they are scared of one thing: loneliness. Paragraph two of “The End of Solitude” implies, “Technology is taking away our privacy and our concentration, but it is also taking away our ability to be alone” (Deresiewicz 2). Being alone is needed in order to function properly, and if someone is on their phone or computer constantly, are they ever really alone? Though a person is physically alone, he or she can be in contact with anyone throughout the world at all hours of the day. This means most people rarely experience solitude, explaining why Deresiewicz has a negative attitude towards it. Similarly, the author of “Bowling Alone”