Americans poop 20% more than they did in 1980. We also drink more bottled water than beer (I will do my best to reverse that tonight when I celebrate the end of finals) (don't worry Mom, I won't drink too much).
Some other stuff from the article:
“The large master trend here is that over the last hundred years, technology has privatized our leisure time,” said Robert D. Putnam, a public policy professor at Harvard and author of “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.”I am skeptical of people who think that the internet leads to social isolation. Through the internet this week I talked to people in the Philippines, Iraq, Turkey and probably other places as well (I don't necessarily know where because it's not necessary to know where someone is to talk to them) - internet and other communications technologies don't isolate us from people around us, they just lower the requirement for being physically near someone to interact socially with them, thus leading to MORE, not less spreading of information, values, opinions and world outlooks.
“The distinctive effect of technology has been to enable us to get entertainment and information while remaining entirely alone,” Mr. Putnam said. “That is from many points of view very efficient. I also think it’s fundamentally bad because the lack of social contact, the social isolation means that we don’t share information and values and outlook that we should.”
I would describe "isolation" as when my computer was dead, leaving me with no internet and forcing me to walk around in order to talk to people, thus raising the barrier (my own laziness) to social interaction.
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