🧩 BND Motif Index · M897
Bowling alone
People are said to be withdrawing from each other, fewer dinners, clubs, churches and friends, until loneliness is an epidemic: Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone.
- 3claims filed under it
- 1center show it came up on
- 3right shows it came up on
⚠️ A story people tell, not a claim that it's true.
A motif is the shape of a story as its tellers tell it, named the way a folklorist names a tale type, so the same story told about other people, by the other side or in another year lands in the same place. Some of the claims below are true, many are false. Arguing against a story is often a story of its own, its answer (Voter fraud is answered by Voter suppression, Lawfare by No one is above the law), and we file it there; where no answer has a motif yet, the arguments against a story sit with its tellings.
🪜 Its family
what it rests on, what rests on it, and the motifs that answer it
🪜 rests on 🧩 Social trust erosion
🎙️ Who it came up with
the shows we follow where its claims came up, by the show's lean
🫏 left 0
🦗 none of our left shows, so far
⚖️ center 1
"Came up on" means one of its claims was heard on the show: told, reported or argued against. We don't yet mark which. Show leans are our own grouping of the shows we transcribe.
🧶 Its claims
what's been told in this shape, newest first, in our words, with where each was heard
- 2026-10-25 “Social media platforms use a broken business model that leaves people lonelier and more disconnected.”
🎙️ The Daily (NYT) - 2026-10-23 “America is experiencing a tragic breakdown of community where people are increasingly alone.”
🎙️ The Dispatch Podcast 🎙️ The Matt Walsh Show 🎙️ PBD Podcast (podcast) - 2026-10-12 “Americans have been becoming less socially active for decades.”
🎙️ The Dispatch Podcast 🎙️ The Matt Walsh Show 🎙️ PBD Podcast (podcast)
M897 · first seen 2026-10-12 · last 2026-10-25 · what this is · how the index works