Advancement in technology is one product of good' business that has spillover effects on civic engagement. This can be readily seen, for example, in the changes in entertainment, and therefore leisure time, due to improvements in technology, most notably within the last century. It is needless to say that benefits have arisen from this technological growth, and even more so to say that people enjoy having hours of entertainment just a push of a button away. However, the spillover costs to civic engagement associated with this change are much less obvious, yet nevertheless need to be considered and accounted for if the Invisible Hand' is truly to guide us to the common good. Civic engagement is, so to speak, people getting together in their leisure time. But thanks to technological innovation, leisure time is increasingly spent alone, staring at an inanimate object. (Or possibly sitting with others, not speaking, staring at an inanimate object). From vaudeville to the movie theater, from the movie theater to the VCR and DVD "not to mention television shows, walkmans, video games, and now computer games "entertainment has continually become more and more of a private matter. And quite possibly as a result of this, Americans are spending less time together, whether in a club, a team, a church group, a volunteer organization, or at a neighborhood barbecue. In his essay Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam noted this trend of decreasing civic involvement in America, as well as its relation to the growth of entertainment technology. As Putnam writes, "In the language of economics, electronic technology enables individual tastes to be satisfied more fully, but at the cost of the positive social externalities associated with more primitive forms of entertainment."" This important spillover effect must be addressed if the conditions for the Invisible Hand' are to be met.
