The Alienation Index comes from a telephone survey. The results changed very dramatically from 29 & 36 in 1966 and 1968 to 55 and 59 in '73, '74. Since then, it has varied with a small positive trend between 50 and 70.

The initial jump in the first 7 years looks like impacts of methodological changes. Since then, the portion of the population that is willing to pick up the phone and answer questions has plummeted, so that a phone survey sample is an unusual slice of the American Population and getting more and more unusual all the time

Most helpful source: https://theharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Harris-...