Life in the “Bubble”
Not long ago, an article published in The Atlantic called attention to a problem that you might not have given a lot of thought to – the problem of how many of us live in social “bubbles.” According to the author, Derek Thompson, “one of the most useless political observations since the election is that liberal elites live in bubbles. It is useless, not because it’s wrong—they often do—but rather because it’s like saying “liberal elites live in the biosphere.”
Living in bubbles is the natural state of affairs for human beings. People seek out similarities in their marriages, workplaces, neighborhoods, and peer groups. The preferred sociological term is “homophily”—similarity breeds affection—and the implications are not all positive.
White Americans have 90 times more white friends than they have black, Asian, or Hispanic friends, according to one analysis from the Public Religion Research Institute. That’s not a description of a few liberal elite cliques. It’s a statistic describing the social networks of 200 million people. America is bubbles, all the way down.
The implications of Americans’ social and geographical sorting are complex. In politics, it creates circumstances where more than half of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton supporters don’t know anybody voting for the other candidate.
Social Class Bubbles
There’s a new upper class that’s completely disconnected from the average American and American culture at large, argues Charles Murray, the libertarian political scientist and author. This notion of “the bubble” was explored by Murray and Paul Solman, business and economics correspondent for PBS NewsHour, who talked with Murry about his popular quiz “Do You Live in a Bubble?”
So for example, does the term “Branson” make you think of the knighted founder of Virgin Records, or the family vacation town in Missouri? Do you watch Empire? Have you been fishing lately? Would you ever buy clothes at Target? Can you identify military rank insignia? Have you ever met a refugee? Eaten at Applebees? Your answers potentially say something about whether or not you may be living in working class or upper-middle-class bubbles.
You can listen to the discussion by listening to Brian Lehrer’s WNYC show (March 30, 2016), which featured a discussion on the topic. Even better, you can take the “bubble” quiz here.
Working-Class and Middle-Class Bubbles
Murray’s “bubble” exercise gives us an opportunity to reflect on the extent to which we all self-select the experiences and people that inhabit our social worlds. Put another way, it forces us to confront the degree to which, as many sociologists are fond of saying, our sense of what is real and true about the world is in many respects “socially constructed.” That is to say, our social worlds are “made” not given; worse is, we often take for granted that our experiences and understandings are “natural” when they are not natural at all.
One of the topics that came up during Lehrer’s discussion with Solman was the subject of “Trumpism.” Many people, in the wake of the 2016 election results, questioned how a candidate like Trump could generate so much appeal when they didn’t know even one person that supported him. The answer to this lies buried within the concept of “social bubbles.” To be sure, Trump draws support across social class categories. Nonetheless, he primarily remains identified with a working-class white constituency – the people who are most angry about the current state of affairs in the United States.
Soloman suggests there is strong, if not always articulated, antipathy towards these people that some people think of as the “Homer Simpson” crowd. Upper-middle-class people look down on them as being inarticulate, not sophisticated, uneducated people, who live in “fly-over” country. While this may be true on some level, it only adds to the anger, which is often justified. Trump, for all his short-comings, speaks to that anger, even if he does not himself represent and walk the path of a working class person.
Sources
The Brian Lehrer show, WNYC, program discussing Murray’s “bubble” quiz.
The “bubble” quiz.
“Everybody’s in a Bubble, and That’s a Problem,” by Derek Thompson
Discussion Questions
Where do you fit in all of this? Do you live in a bubble?
What results did you get when you took the quiz and how do you explain them?
How do your social relations (people and experiences) contribute to the way you think about the world?
To what degree do you think your social networks may be segregated by social class, race, gender, and sexuality? Or are they diverse?
Can you see how your social “bubble” potentially impacts the way you think about important issues?
Do you make an effort to talk to people who think differently about important issues than you do? What happens if/when you do that? Does it make you uncomfortable to confront ideas that are unlike and/or opposed to the way you traditionally think?
I received a 27. I come from a small area in Virginia, but I consider it multicultural; we have Blacks, Whites, Asians, and Hispanics/Latinos from all over the world. My step father, whom I’ve known since I was three, is from Guatemala and his father is from Spain. He has bestowed many foreign ideas and cultural experiences to my sisters and I that I appreciate because they tried to keep our bubble thin. My mother went to college, but I believe she never finished; therefore, she has a unique experience of her own from being a single mother for roughly 4 years (much longer if you count the rough parts of the first marriage). Although, coming to Loyola I feel I have only seen the smallest glimpse of what I thought I knew. Being a teenager in high school, you think you know just about everything there is. . . and then you go to college and you’re blown away by the fact that you were raised in a bubble and know nothing. It is a scary process because you are blind-sided, but completely worth the hit.
When I took the quiz, my results were:
“A first-generation upper-middle-class person with middle-class parents” or a
“A second-generation (or more) upper-middle-class person who has made a point of getting out a lot”
Both results are very fitting since I am a first-generation child with middle-class parents. However, my parents lived in the Philippines before moving to Jersey City, New Jersey, where I was born. I’ve lived in Princeton, New Jersey all my life but my parents take proactive steps to take me out of the bubble. Since my parents grew up in the Philippines, a third world country, they understand living in a bubble and having an open mind.
It is very disheartening to witness “the bubble” occurring right on Loyola’s campus. Once I began student teaching in Baltimore City, I became more understanding of the stark differences between my way of life and the way of life of my students. It was not until this moment that I realized how privileged I am for all the experiences and opportunities I have had. The “bubble” does not mean that we need to feel guilty about our life, but draws importance to awareness of our surroundings. If you are not exposed to other cultures or ways of life, you will never be able to have greater understanding of the world around you.
when i took the quiz i got the score of 29. getting that score gave me two results either i was a 1st generation upper middle class with middle class parents or i was a 2nd generation or more middle class person that made it a point to go out more. The response is not correct because even though i am a 1st generation born in the united states i am not a part of the upper middle class and i cannot really be the second option because i am not a 2nd generation born child but i do always make it a effort to go out and learn whats going on with the world. i would like to say that i do not live in a bubble because every now and then i like to poke my head out to the world and see what is happening and going on. There are times where in which when someone is talking to me about the latest trends going on or mainstream tv shows and i tell them i don’t know what they are talking about because i tend to not to keep up with that. Once i tell them that response they look at me as if i have been living under a rock. i have never seen the reason.towards why people are interested in shows like empire, once upon a time and so forth. Overall i do not believe that i live inside of a bubble and i also believe that people do not really know that they themselves are in a bubble
Even before this test i knew that i had been living in a bubble, the “New York Bubble” where one might think that the world is progressive, where there’s freedom of speech, where racism doesn’t exist, where opportunity is about where and who one mingles with. Coastal states as New York and California are the exceptions of all of the united States which are either isolated and segregated based on culture or race or simply lives in the white upper-class bubble, completely oblivious to any kind of oppression.
This isolation is either self made of structurally created, where the only sources of entertainment and news come from biased so called “informative media outlets” such as Fox News or NBC, in which the conservative rhetoric is passed as absolute truth and then washed down by some old religious hypocrisy then it is no surprise that those living within this bubbles are comfortable in them and won’t want it popped, for the world has been designed for them in order to keep privileges intact and illusions of grandeur well fed.
It is simple to live in a world where “i would be rich if it wasn’t for all of those gay/black/illegal immigrants” than “I am not rich because the capitalist structure in which the United States has grounded its imperialist politics, does not allow me a working class fellow to access wealth for capitalism thrives in oppression, therefore, if i am not on the top of the pyramid of course i am in the bottom of it, we must overthrow it” it is easier to hate and made others guilty, than understand what role we play in all of this, accept responsibility and do something about it.
His arguments about the idea behind his test is valid, due to that for example some of the questions asked in on the test I didn’t know. why? because I do not live where those people (the other) live. if we think about it we all live in a bubble.
look at me for example, I was born in Barahona, Dominican Republic( south part of the country). there I lived close to sea, we had conucos( a plot of cultivated land ) right in the backyard of the house, we produced most of the things we eat, the house accounts with 6 bedrooms, 2 bathroom ( it is a big house). for me that was normal, living that organic type of life. until one day I went to the capital of the country and saw how frenetic it was, to me it was too much, I couldn’t relate to that lifestyle.
but my ideology of living an organic life, with very close neighbors, close friends and families, where everybody knows everybody, and go to church every Sunday, and everybody was involved in the same activities. Changed when I came to the united state. my bubble back in Barahona was perfect for me, I didn’t feel that I was missing out on anything since that’s all I knew. and anything outside of that was abnormal and as a result not always appealing to me. But being in this new bubble in New York made me realized that I’ve replaced Barahona for New York. How? I realized that when we were discussing the white trash articles. I couldn’t imagine living down there, I couldn’t see myself as part of their bubble.
And probably they feel the same way about New York, and that’s why most of them do not get out of the bubble they are living in. social bubbles are difficult to pop since to a certain level it was sociality and culturally constructed.
I really enjoyed this post because as an Urban Studies student, examining the variety of human settlement forms that have characterized America, and more importantly, the socioeconomic impacts of them, I pay plenty of attention to the environment that we are exposed to in relation to the places we live.
I would start off by saying that according to the quiz, I am considered “a first-generation upper-middle-class person with middle-class parents.” For the most part I agree with this.
I would like to say however, that I do not wholly agree with the criteria, or basic assumptions, by which the thinness of one’s bubble may be generally determined.
I think that the greatest misconception may very well fall with the narrative that people who live in a city, have instantly seen their bubble burst as it is thought that someone who lives in an urban area typically has greater exposure to diversity than those who do not. While this statement does hold true (mostly), we must also lend attention to the fact that this is becoming less and less true and cities themselves become more segregated, with individual neighborhoods being very homogenous.
Being a native New Yorker, I hear many people (including myself) boast about the diversity of New York. It is true that New York City is among the most diverse cities in the world, however this is not the case when examining individual neighborhoods, which are among the most segregated in the country. Again, we boast and praise diversity, but on average there are very few interactions with people of different socioeconomic profiles that are significant. Whites, who dominate affluent neighborhoods, for instance, live among other whites and even work among other whites generally speaking. When we look at younger whites who gentrify low-income neighborhoods, they too stay within their bubbles and comfort zones, that is to say that even being in a racially mixed neighborhood, they are much more likely to engage with other whites in their same situation and do not come in contact with many people who identify differently.
This would explain why I, who was born and raised in the Bronx, one of the most segregated boroughs, have received such a low score on this quiz. Interestingly enough, the neighborhood I recently relocated to, Pelham Parkway in the East Bronx, is by a long shot the most diverse neighborhood I have lived in, and that is to say that it is significantly more racially and ethnically integrated than the majority of neighborhoods in NYC. And even still, we occupy very specific and ethnocentric microcosms within this space, as I have observed with the Albanians who crowd along the malls of Pelham Parkway, the Mexicans who gather on the corner of White Plains Rd and Lydig Ave, and the more affluent Italians who rarely traverse west of Barnes Ave.
That being said, us New Yorkers definitely live in a diverse city, but arguably, the only time we truely immerse ourselves with the plethora of cultures and identities that characterize our city, is when we are on the subway and engaging on the subway itself is questionable.
There is a bubble I have lived in since moving to New York City 15 years ago. It has been impossible to assimilate and be a part of mainstream American Culture. It is ironic that my score on the bubble test was 11 on a (0–20) scale. This score is representative of a second-generation immigrant, or upper middle class person; with the television and movie going habits of the upper middle class. My husband and I are first generation immigrants; from Trinidad and Bulgaria. We have four children (two girls and two boys) and my mother lives with us, our household consists of seven. My husband and I have freelance jobs, which give us the flexibility to spend time with our children, while supporting the family. Many people believe it is impossible to survive and thrive, in such a situation in an urban city. It is not easy, but it is possible with set priorities and good choices. Therefore, it is very difficult for me to comprehend why people are choosing to support someone such as Donald Trump; with his agenda and what he represents. Even though living in a bubble has me thinking differently than some Americans; it is obvious to me that the notion of “Trumpism” is not the best choice for the majority of us.
I don’t think I live in a bubble just because I’ve been exposed to so many different types of “bubbles”. I’ve lived in Rochester, PA which is definitely fly-over area. There area to be could definitely be considered as a bubble. I was just there in February visiting family that is still there and there is a Hugh support for trump. Everywhere I looked there was bumper stickers and pro-hat. Which is no surprise, I’ve been in restaurants there where people have started at me the whole time. This happens often because it is almost 95% white. The people there aren’t exposed to diversity and in general people at that different from them in anyway. This type homogeneous environment I think definitely creates the bubble mentality. This bubble definitely impacts the way people think about important issues. If you have never been exposed to or know anyone that is different from you you can easily scapegoat them because you have never sympathized with them.
Exiting bubbles requires a higher education or a change of location in my opinion. Luckily, I have been able to live on an island off the coast of Madagascar, speak different languages and be exposed to cultures which were different from my own but, for most Americans;this opportunity is imaginary. I feel now since I have lived abroad that the demands of a metropolis coerces one to live in a social bubble automatically. Most relations in city life consist of providing someone a service, even the idea of a neighbor is associated with someone who could be used for something. The concept of Geselleschaft insists that living in larger cities creates a sense of disunity, extreme individualism and selfishness. I feel like everyday, there is something that MUST be done and everything is rushed and lived selfishly.There is a fine line between what separates the social bubble of a Mississipian’s from that of a New Yorker’s.
In both cases, the ideas of both citizens are formed from their class; even if a New Yorker’s ideologies can seem more “educated”. I’ve scored a 62 on the quiz but I am far beyond what constitutes a “middle class American”. Growing up in a relatively poor immigrant neighborhood in South Brooklyn, I’ve seen first generation immigrants open up businesses and then have their children inherit it. I’ve seen people, myself included, live on the same block for years and complain for years how they would like to move out. A lack of social mobility is what creates these social bubbles. The stagnancy of a working class lifestyle causes an individual to lose his or her sense of time,intellect, and choice. In this sense, the ideas produced from a working poor individual will stem from what they are familiar with rather than what they don’t know. There’s no curiosity in a life confined to paying bills and rent. My mother is a perfect example; she has dreamed of going to London all her life but because she has spent almost 40 years of her life working, the idea of going had become too foreign and too abstract to achieve.
I have family in Saint Louis, Missouri whose social bubbles can be a direct influence of the systematic racial divides of the state. For example, my cousins all went to schools that were either fully black and or white. In New York City, we take the magnitude of the city’s ethnic diversity for granted. In Saint Louis, my cousins don’t even know what a person from Nepal looks like. Anyways back to my point, my cousins in Saint Louis formed their social circles among people solely of their skin color, but this was not a choice for them. The state intentionally segregates public schools in order to favor what race will be the most educated and what schools will receive better funding. So, their social bubbles are not autonomous and nor our any of ours. Without social mobility or some form of exposure to a different culture, country, or education even..people will remain in whatever bubble their society dictates to them.