What do you think we lose as participation in these kind of collective activities decline?

Well, there's so much out there on this.

Robert Putnam has been writing about this for 50 years.

The first big book of his that I read is called Bowling Alone.

And gosh, that book is probably, I don't know, 40 years old by now.

And so Robert Putnam has been researching the decline of civic associations in America for generations.

And so read Putnam, you know.

But can you kind of explain loose ties and why they're important?