I’m planning a Sociology of Families course, and I am definitely putting Eric Klinenberg‘s New York Times article One’s a Crowd and Office Hours interview with him–Eric Klinenberg on Going Solo–on the syllabus. He cites many sociologists and sociological research in the NYT article. This article and the interview would be great for a Soc of Families class or any Intro class on the subject of families or individualism in Western culture.
In any discussion of families in the United States, we cannot forget about all the people (40-50% in prosperous American cities) who choose to live alone. He points out that, because of new technologies–cell phones, internet, social networking, etc.–people who live alone are not alienated or isolated in ways that they may have been twenty years ago. I love the counterintuitive finding that people who live alone are actually more social than those with families.
This article and interview would be great for use in the classroom because many young people today view living alone as somewhat of a ‘rite of passage’ into adulthood, but do not envision themselves living along in middle-age. It would be very interesting to get students’ perspectives on this topic. Some discussion questions to get to conversation going or to have them answer at home:
1. Have you ever lived alone? Do you see yourself living alone at any time in the future? What are the advantages to living alone in your opinion? What are the disadvantages?
2. How is privilege related to living alone? Who gets to live alone and who doesn’t?
3. What do you think of Klinenberg’s point that people who live alone are actually more social than people who live with families?
4. Klinenberg discusses the internet and cellphones as tools that allow people to feel connected to others even when they live alone. How often do you communicate with people through text or on social networking sites like Facebook? How do you think this compares to face-to-face interaction? Do you think the rise in digital communication is a positive or negative development? Why?
Comments 1
Letta Page — April 19, 2012
I think the second question is going to be a great one in a classroom; so often we think about "living alone" as sort of sad or creating vulnerabilities, but Kleinenberg's interview on Office Hours really showed how it is that we can be much lonelier even when living with someone else. That said, many people find they don't have the ability or choice to live alone; for undergrads, this discussion will probably have to do more with plain old money questions (they can't afford first and last month's rent, let alone the months in between, on their own) or with the sociability of undergrad life (they live with 10-20 people in a house! it's so much fun!), but grad students may start talking about pooling resources as a married or cohabitating couple, as parents, and as possible caretakers for their own aging relatives, as well as the realities that, if they want to, say, live in a standalone house or hedge against a shaky job market, they may need to have another income in the equation. Great ideas here, Kia!