Having examined which Millennials are more or less likely to be civically engaged among various demographic groups, let’s now take a look at the extent to which social networks and connections drive civic engagement. Social connectedness refers to that dimension of civic health not connected to the ostensibly public things people do, but with all the private things they do in relation to one another. These kinds of informal interactions tighten the bonds in a community and increase its civic health. Similarly, having relatively weak social connections can fray the civic health in a community. We focus on three indicators of social connectedness:
• Frequency of eating dinner with other household members
• Frequency of communicating with friends and family via the Internet
• Frequency of talking to neighbors

Figure 13 shows the frequency with which Floridians engaged in each of these activities by age group. Eating dinner with household members frequently is one of the few indicators examined where age does not seem to have an effect. as might be expected, Millennials were the most likely to communicate with friends and family online frequently, and this percentage declines as age increases. However, in terms of face-to-face interactions, Millennials were much less likely to talk to neighbors. as Table 2 shows, compared to Millennials in the rest of the nation, Florida’s Millennials were somewhat above average in terms of frequently eating dinner with household members, and below average when it came to communicating with friends and family via the internet and talking to neighbors frequently.




The Effects of Social Connectedness on Civic Engagement
Figure 14 shows the effect of the frequency of eating dinner with family members on civic engagement levels of Millennials. Clearly those who never eat dinner with family members are among the least engaged of any Floridians. as the frequency of eating dinner with household members increases, the expected increase in civic engagement is not evident, except for the two non-electoral political engagement indicators. Even here the effects are diminished by the fact that so few of any floridians partake in these forms of engagement. The effects seem more evident among those aged 30 and over (figure 15), especially when it came to voter turnout and group participation. This raises an intriguing question: Does this form of social connectedness interact with other life-cycle variables, so that in time they will be evident among Millennials as well? alternatively, is this type of social connectivity just less likely to affect Millennials?

Figure 16 shows frequency of communicating with friends and family via the Internet. While this measure is by no means perfect, in that we cannot discriminate exactly how an individual is using the internet (e.g., blogging, emailing, Facebook posts, etc.), it does serve as a useful summary of the amount of time an individual is spending on the internet to connect with others. Among Millennials, frequent communication with friends and family certainly does not reduce levels of civic engagement, although the effects of increasing engagement levels are rather uneven. For example, while frequent internet use boosted registration, it did not have the same effect on turnout. frequent internet use also increased non-electoral political engagement and group participation. Given that the “internet effect” also appears to be evident among those aged 30 and over (figure 17), there is certainly the potential for online social connections to come to increase levels of civic engagement, particularly since Millennials are the generation most likely to be frequently connecting online. Of course, these findings again underscore the importance of education, given that increasing levels of education—along with income—are related to internet access.

Figure 18 shows that the effect of frequently talking to neighbors can result in increases in registration, both non-electoral political engagement indicators and group participation. This pattern was also evident among those aged 30 and over (figure 19). These findings suggest that some increases in the civic engagement of Millennials might occur simply by encouraging people to talk to their neighbors. The findings certainly confirm that those citizens who never engage with their neighbors will tend to be largely absent from civic life in Florida, especially beyond electoral engagement.