Dunkelman believes that Americans are divesting from these critical local ties in favor of other relationships. To illustrate this, he uses a model of Jupiter’s rings. If Jupiter represents the individual, the planet’s “inner rings” represent close family and friends, its “middle rings” represent neighbors and local community members, and its “outer rings” represent individuals who share some single interest with the individual, but may not share geographic proximity with him or her (think “tweeps”).
Increasingly, Americans spend their time with the inner and outer rings, while impoverishing middle-ring relationships. They “aren’t being lost in a sea of social isolation,” Dunkelman writes. “They’re shifting their time and attention from one constellation of rings to another.” To the extent they do invest in middle-ring relationships, it is with individuals who are just like them, as scholars such as Charles Murray and Bill Bishop have pointed out.