However, other changes—especially the period effect of changing generations—are clearly also important in the sense that they correlate with reduced civic engagement over recent decades. Putnam's data suggest that the generational effect is about twice the effect of television viewing, although these two are not independent. The television generation accounts for between 10 and 15 percent of the total decline in group participation rates over the period from 1965 to 2000 (Putnam 2000, 284).

XREF: Connects to broader Putnam thesis on declining social capital and its competing causal explanations.

Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, loc. 735