J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
Staying connected in the age of social media
'The Affluent Society:' Postwar analysts worried about the social alienation and conformity of suburban living
Sport utility vehicles (SUVs) at a suburban dealer
Keeping in touch in a shopping mall
Consumer choice at a suburban shopping center
Texting outside an Apple Retail Store
Mario Savio at the University of California Berkeley in 1966
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
Shopping for a new iPod touch
'Alienation' today? the Tea Party movement
Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, recently described by Bill Clinton as 'deeply alienated and disconnected'
A punch card: a postwar symbol of people's reduction to automatons
Cubicles: alienation for the professional classes
An automobile factory: fears that the repetitive assembly line produced alienation in workers
J.D. Salinger (1919-2010), author of 'The Catcher in the Rye' (1951)
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who on Christmas 2009 tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner with plastic explosives in his underwear
Betty Friedan, author of 'The Feminine Mystique'
The cover of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (1963)
G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831), who first put forth the concept of alienation as a formal philosophical proposition
Karl Marx (1818-1883), who applied the term 'alienation' to the separation of the worker from the work process in the development of capitalism
Facebook: Why we aren't 'alienated' anymore?
A movie poster from the emblematic youth film of the early postwar period, James Dean's Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
A screen shot from James Dean's Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Two women sending text messages on their cell phones in a coffee shop at the California State University, Fullerton.
A couple expresses excitement after buying iPhones upon their release in June 2007
'Adrift in Lonely Crowds:' Postwar analysts worried about the social alienation and conformity of suburban living