This comparison is specious and unfairly undercuts the ThePhysicist's point.
People of that generation, outside of commuting, were an exceptionally social generation. Family dinners being important and often required, where you shared your day. You didn't see the entire family sitting around the table with a newspaper like you see entire families at a restaurants with their noses buried in smartphones.
Where are those same people you see in these pictures today? Commuting in cars - ever more isolated than before. They rarely if even carpool.
Original replies point is excellent and well said and if you're trying to somehow compare newspapers and smartphones you're ignoring a looming social problem that is going to affect generations to come. We already see it's detrimental affects in trying to higher young people.
> "Where are those same people you see in these pictures today? Commuting in cars - ever more isolated than before. They rarely if even carpool."
No they're not. All 3 of the pictures shown appear to be from the New York area - the first one is a commuter train, nowadays the LIRR or the Metro North. The latter two pictures are of the NYC subway which, well, still exists.
The modern counterparts to the people in those pictures are still commuting by train, and like before people still didn't talk much with each other. The means of self-distraction have changed, but the nature of people have not.
This is pure rose-tinted glasses crap. North Americans have never treated public transport as a social gathering ground. This is a cultural problem, not one of urban design.
Another poster draws comparisons to college campuses, which strikes me as false also. I live in Manhattan, which is about as dense as this country gets, and my neighborhood has a population density of 25K per sq mi. Everyone walks everywhere, but yet the amount of social contact between complete strangers is pretty minimal. Certainly less than when I was in college.
Once again, it's cultural. If you convince people that talking to strangers is annoying and not-okay, it doesn't matter how tightly you pack them together or how many times a day you can throw them at each other. It just isn't gonna happen.
People of that generation, outside of commuting, were an exceptionally social generation. Family dinners being important and often required, where you shared your day. You didn't see the entire family sitting around the table with a newspaper like you see entire families at a restaurants with their noses buried in smartphones.
Where are those same people you see in these pictures today? Commuting in cars - ever more isolated than before. They rarely if even carpool.
Original replies point is excellent and well said and if you're trying to somehow compare newspapers and smartphones you're ignoring a looming social problem that is going to affect generations to come. We already see it's detrimental affects in trying to higher young people.