By Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — Even with inflation, endless air travel complaints and the recent flight cancellations caused by the government shutdown, millions of Americans, including me, will begin their holiday celebrations on a plane. And while some are already making their packing lists, I am more concerned about what I should watch. In addition to getting you where you want to go, those hours spent in uncomfortable seats — first at the gate and then on board — are a guilt-free opportunity to catch up on or revisit great shows and films.

In-flight viewing is a specific, and sometimes unintentionally communal, viewing experience; not everything works. Choose tearjerkers and musicals with care. Ugly crying over “The Notebook” or singing along with “Wicked” might feel great, but it can cause your fellow passengers unnecessary consternation and/or annoyance.

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If you are traveling with or seated near children, you should avoid hard-R-rated fare — as I discovered while briefly attempting to watch “Game of Thrones” while seated beside my then-young son, nudity and beheadings don’t need the sound on to be inappropriate.

Likewise, avoid anything that involves tragic or problematic air travel — catch up on the “Final Destination” franchise another time — and you also might want to skip full-attention-demanding subtitles. The perfect airplane watch allows you to immerse yourself while also remaining aware of what’s happening around you. (Including and especially requests from flight attendants.)

With all these considerations in mind, here are some suggestions.

Watch at the gate

Comedy series are best, for obvious mood-sweetening reasons (should delays occur), but also because the episodes are short and tend not to have dramatic moments that might keep you watching even after your group number has been called.

“Schitt’s Creek” (Amazon)

Each episode of this perfectly addictive series about a once-rich (and very dysfunctional) family that finds itself forced to start anew in a small town will make you laugh no matter how many times you’ve seen it.

“Derry Girls” (Netflix)

Those unfamiliar with the Northern Ireland accent may find it necessary to use subtitles, which I just cautioned against. But this show is worth breaking the rules for. Living through the Troubles in 1990s Derry, five Catholic school friends and their families cope hilariously with everyday issues, including school life under the redoubtable eye of Sister Michael (Siobhán McSweeney).

“New Girl” (Hulu)

The shenanigans of friends/roomies Jess (Zooey Deschanel), Nick (Jake Johnson), Schmidt (Max Greenfield), Winston (Lamorne Morris) and Cece (Hannah Simone) are always a delight.

“Brooklyn Nine-Nine” (Netflix)

Any time’s a good time to watch the greatest police comedy series since “Barney Miller.” Andy Samberg’s Jake Peralta heads a misfit but inevitably successful team of New York detectives, headed by the driest, wisest chief in TV history — Captain Holt, played by the late, great Andre Braugher.

“Abbott Elementary” (Hulu)

Celebrate the holidays with this quick-witted, revelatory and very sweet teacher-centric mockumentary-comedy created by and starring Quinta Brunson. Compared with classroom chaos, even the airport will seem like an oasis of tranquility.

“What We Do in the Shadows” (Hulu)

If you somehow missed this hilariously unique comedy-horror mockumentary about a group of vampires living in modern-day Staten Island, now is the time to rectify that.

Watch on domestic flights

All of the above comedy series work here as well — but movies are best, especially if you can time it so the film begins when altitude is achieved and ends as you’re returning your seat backs and tray tables to their full upright positions.

FILMS:

“The Da Vinci Code” (AMC+)

The perfect in-flight film, “The Da Vinci Code” offers something like cultural edification (the Louvre! The Knights Templar! Biblical history!) while not forcing you to think too much. A tour of Paris, great action sequences, the always endearing Tom Hanks and a literally beatific conclusion.

“Spy” (Amazon)

Melissa McCarthy is an everywoman intelligence agent who chooses to go into the field for the first time in this strangely unsung hero of modern comedy. Guaranteed to make you laugh even if you’re stuck in the middle seat. (Also set in Paris, it’s a perfect double feature with “The Da Vinci Code” for those five-hour flights.)

“Crazy Rich Asians” (Netflix)

Jon M. Chu’s glorious romantic comedy will transport you into a world far beyond the dreary confines of contemporary air travel and make you feel, if only for a moment, that you too are flying in a first-class compartment that contains an actual double bed.

“Iron Man” (Disney+)

Travel back in time to the moment when Robert Downey Jr. jump-started the Marvel Cinematic Universe and remind yourself why. It really is that good.

“Sense and Sensibility” (Amazon)

The exquisite nature of the performances, writing, direction, cinematography and score has made one of the best Jane Austen adaptations a go-to comfort film for when you’re feeling ill. Which is why it’s perfect while flying.

“Paddington” and/or “Paddington 2” (Netflix)

Come for the adorable bear (voiced by Ben Whishaw), stay for the adventure and sweet hijinks (and, in “Paddington 2,” Hugh Grant!). You will reach your destination feeling more kindly to your fellow travelers, which can only improve any trip.

“Edge of Tomorrow” (Netflix)

Tom Cruise teams up with Emily Blunt to battle an alien invasion, with some help from time travel. Classic dystopian thriller with several clever twists. If you’re feeling hot and cramped, just think of Cruise and Blunt in those super suits.

“The Martian” (Netflix)

Feel bad that your flight got delayed and you might not make your connection? A little time spent with Matt Damon’s astronaut, stranded for years on Mars, will put everything in perspective. At least you don’t have to figure out how to grow potatoes in hostile soil.

“Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” (Amazon)

The ultimate full-immersion movie sees four teenagers sucked into a survival adventure game in which their avatars are played by Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart and Karen Gillan.

“Skyfall” (Amazon)

Honestly, most Bond films are a good choice but Daniel Craig is my favorite Bond and “Skyfall” features a more-than-usual presence of M (Judi Dench). Also, the song.

“Knives Out” (Amazon)

A classic manor house mystery, which revived the genre when it became a hit in 2019, “Knives Out” is the ideal blend of mystery and wit, with a cast of characters to keep you company.

SHOWS:

“Hawkeye” (Disney+)

If you’re looking for a five-hour (or so) miniseries with plenty of Marvel action and a holiday theme, look no further. A year after the events of “Avengers: Endgame,” Hawkeye super fan Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) teams up with her reluctant hero, Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), to face down enemies new and old. Oh, and celebrate Christmas in New York.

“Black Mirror” (Netflix)

This sci-fi anthology series is perfect plane viewing because a.) It’s so very good and b.) Each episode is its own story, so you can construct however many hours you need (and, perhaps, catch up on a show so many people continue to talk about).

“Sherlock” (PBS)

Same principle — each episode is essentially a short film and you get to wallow in the wonder of Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock), Martin Freeman (Watson), Mark Gatiss (Mycroft) and all the rest as they solve crimes in modern twists on the classic tales.

Watch on international flights

For flights six hours and longer, you can hunker down and make your way through a film franchise or an entire season or seasons of a television series.

FILMS:

“The Lord of the Rings” trilogy (HBO Max)

Pick the director’s cut of all three and your journey through Middle-earth will take you almost 12 hours, which is about as long as it takes to fly from L.A. to New Zealand, where it was filmed.

“Hunger Games” (HBO Max)

The four films in which Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and friends attempt to wrest a shattered land from the tyranny of President Snow (Donald Sutherland) clock in at about nine hours total, which, with bathroom and meal breaks, should get you from L.A. to London or Paris.

“Mission Impossible” films (Amazon and other platforms)

Although they often include mishaps in the air, the fantastic (in both senses of the word) nature of “Mission: Impossible” makes these films an ideal high-altitude binge. From first to last, they run more than 18 hours, which is, quite frankly, far too many hours of consecutive movie viewing. But with plenty of installments to choose from, you can accept whichever assignments (and Cruise stunts) appeal to you.

“Harry Potter” (HBO Max)

However one feels about J.K. Rowling’s politics, this is a delightful film franchise that’s even longer than “Mission; Impossible” — about 20 hours. But you can start, and stop, the series wherever you want (though I would urge you not to skip the underrated “Order of the Phoenix”).

SHOWS:

“Black Doves” (Netflix)

Keira Knightley and Whishaw play highly unlikely but ruthlessly skilled mercenary spies who work for an ice-cold Sarah Lancashire. The six-hour-long series tells a complete tale (though Season 2 is in the works) and as the events take place in London as Christmas approaches, makes a fine holiday thriller.

“House”

Pick a season, any season (there are eight of them, with an average of 22 episodes each) and the wit, wisdom and scathing insanity of Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) and his team will carry you through to any destination. And unlike other medical shows, most of the ailments are so bizarre that you won’t have to worry if that cough or twinge is a sign that you’re getting one of them.

“The Durrells in Corfu” (PBS)

It’s 1935 and young widow Louisa Durrell (Keeley Hawes) decides that the answer to her financial straits is to move herself and her four children to the island of Corfu. Sweet and scenic hilarity ensues, and includes the young Josh O’Connor (“The Crown”) and Callum Woodhouse (“All Creatures Great and Small”) as two of Louisa’s sons. Four seasons, 26 episodes. You’re welcome.

“Call the Midwife” (Netflix)

Seasonal purists could just download the dozen or so Christmas episodes of this long-running and still-exceptional drama about a group of midwives working out of a convent in London’s East End. (Between the nuns and the babies, the specials are always wonderful.) But if you haven’t seen the series, best to start with Season 1 and keep going.

“Mare of Easttown” (HBO Max)

If you somehow missed Kate Winslet’s turn as a small-town Pennsylvania cop (with a great Delco accent) who is trying to solve a brutal murder, then this is your chance. If you didn’t, well, it’s time for an eight-hour rewatch in which you can use the time you spent wondering who dunit to admire all the terrific acting.

“Slow Horses” (Apple TV)

The butt-numbing hours will fly by like minutes when you immerse yourself in the TV adaptation of the first five of Mick Herron’s Slough House novels. Gary Oldman is having a blast as Jackson Lamb, the greasy, rumpled, sharp-tongued and strategically flatulent keeper of a den of MI5 misfits. Who somehow manage to save the day.

“The Crown” (Netflix)

Think your flight is long? Consider the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth, played over the course of six seasons by Claire Foy, Olivia Colman and Imelda Staunton. For a full immersive experience, it’s tough to beat the royal settings, period clothes and changing times. And with 60 hours at your fingertips, you can move through history without ever leaving your seat.

“30 Rock” (Hulu)

Tina Fey’s send-up of a fictional “Saturday Night Live”-type show, and satirical look at the television business in general, is just as biting and gimlet-eyed as it was when it premiered almost 20 years ago. It got better as it aged, so for purposes of downloading, look to Seasons 4 and 5.

“Parks and Recreation” (Peacock/Amazon)

Life is always better when you spend some time with Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman), April Ludgate (Aubrey Plaza) and the many fine public servants in Pawnee, Indiana’s city government. The mockumentary series found its feet in Season 2, so you might want to start there.

“The Wire” (HBO Max)

David Simon’s five-season Baltimore-based crime drama is definitely R-rated (thus breaking one of our earlier stated rules) but it is the show that is consistently listed as one of the best — if not the best — TV dramas ever. So if a long-haul flight demands that you binge, why not binge big?

©2025 Los Angeles Times. Visit latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The 20th century was horrible for the Everglades. The broad shallow river, one of the most unique ecosystems on the planet, was labeled wasteland and ruthlessly dammed, carved into parcels, dried out and diverted into near oblivion.

But at the end of the century, 25 years ago this month, Democrats and Republicans from Florida and Washington, D.C., joined forces and signed the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan into law.

The ambitious 68-project plan was supposed to cost $7.8 billion, it was supposed to take 30 years to complete and it was supposed to save what was left of the Everglades.

That’s not how things have played out, at least not yet. Two of those three expectations have been vastly overshot — costs have tripled to $23 billion and it could take another 20 years to complete.

Experts say restoration success hinges on two things: The engineering has to work and the people of Florida have to be willing to pay for the job to be finished.

But where do we stand 25 years in? After decades of funding delays, after heated controversies over reservoir size, after “lost summers” due to toxic blue-green algae, the pace of construction has finally quickened. The “crown jewel” of restoration — the Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir — is finally under construction. More water is flowing under Tamiami Trail and into Everglades National Park.

Shannon Estenoz is the chief policy officer of The Everglades Foundation, a nonprofit focused on science and policy around the restoration plan. To use a sports metaphor about the restoration, she said, “I would say we are in the fourth quarter of the restoration program, and we’re ahead, we’re winning. But the game is still losable, we could still blow it. … We, the people, could get this wrong. So we’ve got to keep our heads in the game and stay focused.”

In a nutshell, the restoration plan looks to reverse the mistakes of the 20th century.

The Everglades once flowed 220 miles from south of Orlando to Lake Okeechobee, down through what is now the Everglades Agricultural Area, the Miccosukee Reservation and into Everglades National Park. The river terminated through vast mangrove-lined estuaries in Florida Bay and the Gulf.

An alligator peers at anglers during a Miccosukee Tribe fishing tournament that aims to remove invasive fish in the Everglades. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

But the modern world envisioned a dry farmable Everglades.

During the 20th century, the river was dammed and cut into boxes. Some became suburbia, some became farmland. Remaining wild areas were often parched, or in some cases, such as along Tamiami Trail, where the Miccosukee Reservation sits, flooded.

Florida Bay grew too salty without enough fresh water, and during wet years, as of 2025, half of the original Everglades has been destroyed.

The restoration plan has moved at a maddeningly slow pace for some, especially during weather extremes.

During dry years, Florida Bay has become so salty and hot that seagrass die-offs fuel algae blooms that in turn fueled more seagrass die-offs. Recovery takes decades. During wet years, such as 2016, canals shunted highly polluted Lake Okeechobee water east and west to estuaries near Stuart and Fort Myers, decimating those ecosystems and prompting “lost summers” of economic damage.

“You know, we were slow in getting out of the box,” said Steve Davis, The Everglades Foundation’s chief science officer, referencing the cumbersome process of planning and navigating funding cycles in Congress. “But now we’re kind of hitting all of those key metrics in terms of having projects planned, having them authorized, having the money to now construct and even accelerate something like the (Everglades Agricultural Area) Reservoir.”

The pace of groundbreaking, construction and completion of pivotal projects has undeniably accelerated in the last few years.

In July of this year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the agency overseeing the restoration, agreed to allow the state to take the lead in construction on key projects, including the reservoir, which is now projected to be done by 2029 instead of 2034.

A catfish floating in an algae bloom in Lake Okeechobee near the Pahokee Marina. Lake Okeechobee water is high in nutrients that fuel algae blooms. When that water is discharged into estuaries, it can cause blooms there, and overwhelm saltwater estuaries with too much fresh water.

Since 2023, the Army Corps and South Florida Water Management District, which also oversees the plan, have made many gains, including:

— Completing the C-43 impoundment, which stores water off of Lake Okeechobee and doles it out into the Caloosahatchee estuary at a slower, eco-friendly pace, helping fish and oysters thrive.

— Breaking ground on the pivotal EAA Reservoir, which will store Lake Okeechobee discharges before the water flows into filtration marshes and eventually south to Florida Bay. It will also help the Army Corps reduce polluted Lake Okeechobee discharges to delicate estuaries near Stuart and Fort Myers.

— Breaking ground on the Blue Shanty Flow Way, which will move more fresh water under the Tamiami Trail and into Florida Bay. This will also lower water levels in the Miccosukee Reservation, where water is often too high for too long, damaging the ecosystem.

— Completing the Biscayne Bay Coastal Wetlands Project, which filters suburban canal water through a restored wetland before it disperses more naturally into Biscayne National Park, where it helps seagrass and marine wildlife thrive.

— Additionally, the Army Corps and water management district have completed three miles of bridging along Tamiami Trail, which previously acted as a dam.

When will it all be done? Col. Brandon Bowman of the Army Corps said it will be “a couple decades” before every last one of the 68 infrastructure projects is finished.

Chief Science Officer of The Everglades Foundation to underwater vegetation Steve Davis, points on a map explaining Everglades wildlife in Everglades National Park, Florida on September 30, 2021. – The largest wetland in the United States is the battleground for one of the largest ecological conservation efforts in the world.
But time is running short, and global warming is threatening a subtropical wilderness that is home to more than 2,000 species of animals and plants. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP) (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)

Concerns linger, particularly with the ability to store and clear water.

“Yes, we’re 25 years into CERP (the restoration plan),” said Eve Samples, spokesperson for Friends of the Everglades, an environmental nonprofit. “But we still haven’t finished the job in terms of land acquisition.”

The lynchpin of restoration

Though breaking ground on the reservoir and accelerating its schedule has been cause for celebration, it has been the most contentious project on the restoration plan. Critics say its current footprint and functionality is insufficient.

Optimists in the early 2000s envisioned a shallow, 60,000-acre wildlife-friendly reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee that would have required the sugar industry to sell a significant amount of land.

The dream almost came true.

Gov. Charlie Crist cut a deal in 2008 with a company called U.S. Sugar to buy all the company’s EAA land — 187,000 acres — and convert some of it into the EAA Reservoir and filtration marshes.

Then the Great Recession hit and the state lacked the funds to buy the land. When Gov. Rick Scott was elected in 2010 he had the option to buy most of the land, but he chose not to. It was expensive, $1.34 billion, and when sugar prices rose, the industry, which had contributed handsomely to Scott’s Let’s Get to Work political committee, became reluctant to part ways with the land.

Scott would go on to cut state budgets devoted to land acquisition. It would be another nine years before the state signed a law funding a restoration reservoir in 2017, but the project would be limited to land the state already owned.

The project broke ground in 2023.

Once completed, the reservoir will be a 10,500-acre, 23-foot-deep, tub-shaped impoundment with 37-foot-tall banks. Its total capacity will be about two-thirds of the original plan.

There will be another 6,500 acres of critical filtration marsh, known as stormwater treatment areas to go with it.

This photo from July 2024 shows the EAA Reservoir under construction. The state expects to finish the impoundment by 2029. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun Sentinel; Aerial support provided by LightHawk)

Critics say it’s not enough.

Scientists at Friends of the Everglades believe the system needs another 100,000 acres of water storage and cleaning south of Lake Okeechobee. That would require the state to purchase more land in the EAA.

“That (100,000 acres) sounds like a daunting number until you remember that we do have voter-approved land acquisition money from the state of Florida,” said Samples.

In 2014, Florida voters overwhelmingly approved Amendment 1 , which appropriated tax revenue to land acquisition for the purposes of conservation. Conservation groups have sued the state Legislature over how the money should be spent.

Samples has concerns about the sugar industry selling their farmland to mines or housing developers.

“There’s still about 400,000 acres of sugar cane in the Everglades Agricultural Area, and we know that the industry is looking at other uses for that land because it has proposed a rock mine, for example, and there have been other development proposals in the EAA,” she said.

Samples said that changes in use would require government approval from Palm Beach County. “There are some forks in the road,” she said, “that are critical to the future health, not just to the Everglades, but to all of South Florida — our water supply, our ecology, our clean water-based tourism economy.”

Clean water worries

The size of the reservoir is not the only concern. By law, the water flowing into the Everglades must be clean.

Water from Lake Okeechobee and the EAA is laced with the fertilizer phosphorus, which wreaks havoc in the Everglades by spiking the growth of plants that don’t belong there, choking out the foundation of the whole system.

Stormwater treatment areas, known as STAs — managed marshes that filter the phosphorus — are seen by many to be the weak link in the restoration chain.

Their current setup has no redundancy, and sometimes they must be shut down. It’s illegal to send polluted water south, so the flow stops.

“They’re kind of unpredictable biological systems and unpredictable from the standpoint that we don’t know how much rain is going to come, when it’s going to come,” said Davis of The Everglades Foundation. “We don’t know when the hurricanes are going to come. They have an impact on STAs. … What we’ve seen is that we really have no redundancy in that infrastructure.”

A new STA is being built next to the EAA Reservoir, but it will only be able to handle about half of the reservoir’s annual outflow.

The rest will have to go to STAs that already get agriculture runoff. The lack of redundancy concerns both Davis and Samples.

“There is no Everglades restoration unless the water is clean,” said Samples, “and we can’t clean adequate volumes of water unless more land is acquired in the EAA,” said Samples.

Bowman is more confident.

He says the water management district has become quite good at managing the STAs.

“So from what we’re seeing, the science is kind of getting dialed in, as long as they stay hydrated. I think they (the STAs) are going to do what they’re needed to do.”

Anglers fish in the Everglades as traffic passes on part of three miles of bridges along US Highway 41 (Tamiami Trail). The bridges, part of Everglades restoration, allow more water to flow south into Everglades National Park and Florida Bay. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

The Miccosukee flooding

Other issues persist. The Everglades are currently boxed off into massive swaths of land, some dotted beautifully with tree islands and a landscape much as it’s been for 5,000 years, some bereft of water flow and thus flattened into homogeneous plains of sawgrass that don’t support as much life, some of it too wet.

The Miccosukee Reservation sits at the south end of a series of levees that funnel water onto it. and the Tamiami Trail is not yet porous enough to allow that water to pass south quickly.

During wet years, the reservation ends up being too wet for too long, driving out wildlife and damaging plant life.

Miccosukee airboats partaking in the tribe’s annual Everglades Study. (Bill Kearney/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Construction on the Blue Shanty Flow Way, which helps move more water through the Tamiami Trail, also has been accelerated to line up with the reservoir’s completion.

Bowman said in addition to Blue Shanty and the three miles of bridging that already exists on the Tamiami Trail, the Army Corps is cutting culverts into several of the levees and canals that cause high water on the the reservation.

The culverts will allow Everglades flow to spread out more naturally in an east-west direction instead of hemming it in.

Pending risks

There are ecological concerns to the restoration’s success, but there are also political and social ones.

Davis said one of the threats to restoration at this juncture is complacency. “The risk is just thinking that, you know, we’ve got enough momentum to get us across the finish line. We don’t.”

Bowman of the Army Corps said that the pace of restoration is tied to funding from both the state and federal government, and that money hinges on public opinion. Completion is going to be based on funds availability — you know, how much willpower folks push on Congress and on Tallahassee to keep on funding it.”

Another long-term concern for environmental nonprofits, such as Friends of the Everglades, is what will happen if the Everglades Agricultural area, much of which sits in Palm Beach County, is developed into housing.

What will success look like?

Estenoz said the best way to measure success is to look at the ecological response — “when we stop depriving Florida Bay of fresh water, can seagrass recover?”

Wading bird nesting activity is one indicator.

Mark Cook, an avian biologist with the South Florida Water Management District, found in 2018 that nesting activity in South Florida was way up, particularly in the Everglades system, even reaching levels similar to the 1930s, but they’ve fluctuated since.

Even the topography can change relatively quickly, though.

Davis said that within five or 10 years of flow restoration, areas that are less than ideal — flat homogeneous sawgrass with no topography — can form sloughs of deeper water where fish can survive dry season and humps of dry land that wildlife such as bobcats to wading birds can exploit all year.

The L 67 Canal and levees divide an area with more natural topography, left, with one that has been flattened by lack of water flow. The restoration plan will cut culverts into the levees to enhance water flow. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun Sentinel, Aerial support provided by LightHawk)

As far as estuary wildlife that should flourish as restoration kicks in, Davis is keen on a few indicator species — pink shrimp, juvenile crocodiles and spotted sea trout — which are all uniquely sensitive to Florida Bay salinity. “If we’re getting more flows south, we’re seeing improved conditions for those indicator species.”

He said the same will hold true for oysters and seagrass in the Caloosahatchee River and the St. Lucie River estuaries once massive freshwater pulses from Lake Okeechobee stop.

As large as those ecosystems are, Davis’ key vision for the restoration’s future is tiny, and tied to a memory from the past.

He started exploring the coastal Everglades in 1995 and witnessed dense lush seagrass beds beyond what he’d ever imagined.

“You’d have seagrasses that are so productive that they’re just producing excess oxygen — it looks like Champagne bubbles coming off of these blades, floating up to the surface. It was just phenomenal to see.”

Bill Kearney covers the environment, the outdoors and tropical weather. He can be reached at bkearney@sunsentinel.com. Follow him on Instagram @billkearney or on X @billkearney6. 

By PETER SMITH, Associated Press

It’s been called an “epidemic” of loneliness and isolation. The “bowling alone” phenomenon.

By any name, it refers to Americans’ growing social disconnection by many measures.

Americans are less likely to join civic groups, unions and churches than in recent generations. They have fewer friends, are less trusting of each other and less likely to hang out in a local bar or coffee shop, recent polling indicates. Given all that, it’s not surprising that many feel lonely or isolated much of the time.

Such trends form the backdrop to this Associated Press report on small groups working to restore community connections.

They include a ministry pursuing “trauma-informed community development” in Pittsburgh; a cooperative helping small farmers and their communities in Kentucky; an “intentional” community of Baltimore neighbors; and organizations seeking to restore neighborhoods and neighborliness in Akron, Ohio.

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Loneliness and its health risks

In 2023, then Surgeon General Vivek Murthy reported on an “epidemic of loneliness and isolation,” similar to his predecessors’ advisories on smoking and obesity.

Isolation and loneliness aren’t identical — isolation is being socially disconnected, loneliness the distress of lacking human connection. One can be alone but not lonely, or lonely in a crowd.

But overall, isolation and loneliness are “risk factors for several major health conditions, including cardiovascular disease, dementia, depression, and premature mortality,” the report said.

Murthy says he’s encouraged by groups working toward social connection through local initiatives ranging from potluck dinners to service projects. His new Together Project, supported by the Knight Foundation, aims to support such efforts.

“What we have to do now is accelerate that movement,” he said.

The pandemic temporarily exacerbated social isolation. There’s been some rebound, but often not back to where it was before.

Scholars and activists have cited various potential causes — and effects — of disconnection. They range from worsening political polarization to destructive economic forces to rat-race schedules to pervasive social media.

Murthy said for many users, social media has become an endless scroll of performance, provocation and unattainably perfect body types.

“What began perhaps as an effort to build community has rapidly transformed into something that I worry is actually now actively contributing to loneliness,” he said.

Bowling alone, more than ever

Harvard’s Robert Putnam, 25 years ago, described the decline in civic engagement in a widely cited 2000 book “Bowling Alone.” It was so named because the decline even affected bowling leagues. The bowling wasn’t the point. It was people spending time together regularly, making friends, finding romantic partners, helping each other in times of need.

Memberships in many organizations — including service, veterans, scouting, fraternal, religious, parental and civic — have continued their long decline into the 21st century, according to a follow-up analysis in “The Upswing,” a 2020 book by Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett.

While some organizations have grown in recent years, the authors argue that member participation often tend to be looser — making a contribution, getting a newsletter — than the more intensive groups of the past, with their regular meetings and activities.

A reaction against institutions

Certainly, some forms of social bonds have earned their mistrust. People have been betrayed by organizations, families and religious groups, which can be harshest on their dissenters.

But disconnection has its own costs.

“There’s been such a drive for personal autonomy, but I think we’ve moved so far past wanting not to have any limits on what we can do, what we can believe, that we’ve become allergic to institutions,” said Daniel Cox, the director of the Survey Center on American Life and a senior fellow in polling and public opinion at the American Enterprise Institute.

“I’m hoping we’re beginning to recognize that unbounded personal autonomy does not make us happier and creates a wealth of social problems,” said Cox, co-author of the 2024 report, “Disconnected: The Growing Class Divide in American Civic Life.”

By the numbers

1. About 16% of adults, including around one-quarter of adults under 30, report feeling lonely or isolated all or most of the time, according to a 2024 survey by the Pew Research Center.
2. Just under half of Americans belonged to a religious congregation in 2023, a low point for Gallup, which has tracking this trend since 1937.
3. About 10% of workers are in a union, down from 20% four decades ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.
4. Around half of Americans regularly spent time in a public space in their community in 2025, such as a coffee shop, bar, restaurant or park. That’s down from around two-thirds in 2019, according to “America’s Cultural Crossroads,” another study by the Survey Center on American Life.
5. About two in 10 U.S. adults have no close friends outside of family, according to the “Disconnected” report. In 1990, only 3% said that, according to Gallup. About one-quarter of adults have at least six close friends, down from nearly half in 1990.
6. About 4 in 10 Americans have at most one person they could depend on to lend them $200, offer a place to stay or help find a job, according to “Disconnected.”
7. About one-quarter of Americans say most people can be trusted — down from about half in 1972, according to the General Social Survey.

Exceptions and a stark class divide

Some argue that Putnam and others are using too limited a measurement — that people are finding new ways of connecting to replace the old ones, whether online or other newer forms of networking.

Still, many numbers depict an overall decline in connection.

This hits hardest on those who are already struggling — who could most use a friend, a job referral or a casserole at the door in hard times.

Those with lower educations, which generally translates to lower incomes, tend to report having fewer close friends, fewer civic gathering places in their communities and fewer people who could help out in a pinch, according to “Disconnected.”

Responses to the crisis

Across the country, small organizations and informal groups of people have worked to build community, whether through formal programs or less structured events like potluck dinners.

Murthy will continue to be visiting such local groups in his “Together Project,” supporting such efforts.

Another group, Weave: The Social Fabric Project at the Aspen Institute, has a searchable database of volunteer opportunities and an online forum for connecting community builders, which it calls “weavers.” It aims to support and train them in community-building skills.

“Where people are trusting less, where people are getting to know each other less, where people are joining groups less, there are people still in every community who have decided that it’s up to them to bring people together,” said its executive director, Frederick J. Riley.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

There are a lot of reasons, some deserved and some not, for Americans’ distrust of their institutions. Lately I have been thinking about one of the more counterintuitive ones: Our schools, governments and even employers are trying too hard to make things fair.

In so doing, they are not only setting themselves up for failure — and eventually mistrust — but they are also misunderstanding the galvanizing role that unfairness plays in a competitive economy.

Unfairness can be tempered, but it can never be eliminated. The decision of how much unfairness to tolerate is one for society as a whole to make, and we expect our institutions to enforce it. I fear that, in the last decade or so, those institutions went too far in enforcing fairness, without full buy-in from the public and at the expense of other values.

The first question is what fairness means.

It certainly does not require that economic success be equally allocated and that people not be held back by things they cannot control. Some people are better at some things, some work harder, some are less neurotic. And of course a lot of people just get lucky. Where we are born, and the family we are born into, make an enormous difference. Parents who invest more in their kids in terms of time and resources give them a big advantage. This has never been fair but has always been true.

None of this is an argument against institutions intervening to stop discrimination, especially if it is based on a person’s immutable characteristics.

In the past institutions did not do enough about this — or worse, contributed to it. It is also the case that institutional priorities can and should shift over time. In the 20th century, American institutions helped reduce barriers that held many talented people back, improved access to education and basic services, and made the tax code more progressive.

There have been two big changes in the last 20 years, one of them empirical and the other more impressionistic. First, American society has gotten richer, and inequality wider. This made imposing a norm of fairness more critical. Second, younger generations had less unsupervised play time — which meant they often relied on authority figures to settle disagreements instead of doing it themselves. Now they expect institutions to do what authority figures once did for them as children.

That doesn’t always work out, as two recent stories about U.S. universities demonstrate. At the University of California at San Diego, more than 12% of incoming students struggle to do middle-school math — even though many had excellent grades in high school. Meanwhile, an alarming share of students at elite universities have some form of disability accommodation that allows them to take untimed tests.

The goals here are noble: These institutions are trying to make the system more forgiving for people who aren’t great at math, received poor instruction or are bad at taking tests. But the result is unfair. There are a limited number of slots available at California’s public universities, and more qualified students are denied admission. And excess accommodations undermine the rigor and reputation of a university education, hurting all graduates.

What both of these examples show is a U.S. educational system that is less concerned about its primary mission — teaching students — and more focused on leveling the playing field in society. The results are perverse outcomes and less trust.

It does not end in college. There is also an expectation that employers are supposed to promote fairness by more heavily weighing factors that don’t have to do with qualifications or performance when making hiring, promotion and pay decisions. DEI in the workplace certainly started with good intentions — to remove unfair barriers that held women and minorities back. But the implementation was at times clumsy or corrupt, and many came to see it as another form of discrimination.

A fixation on fairness can also explain some governmental failures — such as on immigration. The most unfair advantage on the planet is being born in America. Fairness would dictate that anyone who wants a better life for themselves be allowed to emigrate to the U.S.

But if that impulse goes too far, as it did under President Joe Biden, then native-born workers become resentful. People lost trust that the government could control the border, and the Democrats lost elections. Now President Donald Trump is veering too far in the other direction, rounding up immigrants, which is also eroding trust in government (and support for Republicans). There is less scope for a thoughtful immigration policy that balances fairness to the world with domestic economic priorities.

Don’t get me wrong: Fairness is something every society should strive for. By the same token, no society will ever eradicate unfairness. In some ways, a lack of fairness actually powers the economy forward. Basing decisions on merit — whether in government, schools or the workplace — is more efficient. It is also critical for incentives. People work hard not only for their own success, but also to give their kids every advantage. Take away those advantages, and you also take away those incentives. The end result is distrust of the system.

The problem with fairness isn’t so much with the ideal as the execution: Too many policies that promote fairness also promote zero-sum thinking about the economy, under which more opportunity for the less fortunate means less opportunity for everyone else. But this is not how economies work. If America’s institutions want to regain the public’s trust, they’d be better off focusing on growth than on fairness.

Allison Schrager is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering economics. A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, she is author of “An Economist Walks Into a Brothel: And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk.”

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