Getting in sync
Plus, the two-parent privilege, opiates of the masses, and the Front Porch Forum
Good morning,
As we wrap up our first month of Connective Tissue newsletters, we would love to hear your feedback on how we’re doing. Please consider filling out this short survey to let us know what’s working, what’s not, and what you’d like to see moving forward.
Now, to this week’s newsletter. Be warned - it covers a lot of ground:
What role should policy play in promoting marriage and/or two-parent households?
What can the emerging field of collective neuroscience teach us about human connection?
How do our communal social structures—and changes to the laws shaping them—affect our outcomes in life?
Pour a cup of coffee or tea, pop open whichever articles strike your fancy, and consider filling out our short survey. Thanks so much for your support.
- Sam, David, + Eric
The Reads
The Atlantic - “A Driver of Inequality That Not Enough People Are Talking About” by Melissa Kearney (Sept. 2023)
Melissa Kearney, an economist who studies family structures, documents the decline of the two-parent household among those without college degrees and its deleterious effects on children’s social and economic outcomes. The author articulates a rationale for promoting the two-parent household as a policy response, while outlining the challenges in a) crafting the right policies to catalyze it and b) avoiding the denigration of single-parent households while advancing it.
Questions raised: Should the U.S. advance more pro-marriage policies, as Kearney argues? Or, should the U.S. “create a policy infrastructure that supports single parenthood,” as Annie Lowrey responds in her Atlantic column?
→ read Kearney’s full article here and Lowrey’s response here.
Scientific American - “Brain Waves Synchronize When People Interact” by Lydia Denworth (July 2023)
This article discusses the rapidly growing field of collective neuroscience: early findings suggest that when people converse or share an experience, their brain waves synchronize. The degree to which we sync affects our connection with others. As Denworth writes, “With synchrony … humans teach and learn, forge friendships and romances, and cooperate and converse. We are driven to connect, and synchrony is one way our brains help us do it.”
Questions raised: How much of this research merely confirms what we already know from millennia of human experience? How can this research inform the ways we develop experiences geared toward social connection?
The Research
NBER - “Opiates of the Masses? Deaths of Despair and the Decline of American Religion” by Giles, Hungerman, and Oostrom (Jan. 2023)
How do our communal social structures–and the laws and policies shaping them–affect our life outcomes? This study explores how the repeal of so-called “blue laws,” which restricted commerce and entertainment on Sundays, affected religious participation and mortality rates.
The authors describe their findings in the abstract: “We show that deaths of despair began to increase relative to trend in the early 1990s, that this increase was preceded by a decline in religious participation, and that both trends were driven by middle-aged white Americans. Using repeals of blue laws as a shock to religiosity, we confirm that religious practice has significant effects on these mortality rates. Our findings show that social factors such as organized religion can play an important role in understanding deaths of despair.”
This study provides compelling evidence that the repeal of blue laws created a “shock to religiosity,” and that this shock to religiosity contributed to rising levels of deaths of despair. But it raises thorny questions about what to do–particularly at a moment when America is becoming less and less religious and we have 24/7 access to commerce through our phones and computers.
→ read the full working paper here.
The Work
Front Porch Forum - Vermont & New York
What it is: The Front Porch Forum (FPF) hosts regional networks of online neighborhood forums, with the goal of helping neighbors connect and build community.
How it works: FPF is slow by design: posts and replies are published once per day to encourage thoughtfulness instead of reactivity. It’s also designed to promote consistent neighborly interactions. When a resident asks for help, they’ll be nudged to talk to ~10 other neighbors before receiving support from one or two of them. And all of this happens in public, so the hundreds of people in their community see this support, helping them feel more connected to their neighbors and place.
Why it matters: With the decline of local news, the information ecosystems in many smaller cities, towns, and rural areas have become nationalized and polarized. This disconnects neighbors from their place and one another. FPF’s intentional model creates a healthy local information environment that counteracts this trend, increasing civic engagement, bolstering interpersonal trust, and promoting a sense of belonging.
Have feedback on the newsletter? Want to share content for us to feature? Interested in getting involved as a contributor? Email us at theconnectivetissue@gmail.com.