Social Changes in Everyday Life - Essay Example

Everyday Life ID: Introduction As social settings change, the cultural evolution takes place in a refined form. This affects the everyday life of any person who is part of that social setting. Accordingly, everyday culture is open to interpretation, with new social values replacing the old ones over a period. As these changes affect the way human beings live their everyday life, the cultural changes often remain unnoticed, unless some intellectuals who can reflect on the kind of changes that a person may have undergone while conducting chores mechanically on daily basis investigate them. A glaring example of this is the technological revolution, which has brought all residents of world, called netizens, together in a manner, never witnessed before. While discussing on various aspects of everyday life in relation to the prevailing culture and social setting, this paper shall present the features of everyday life in context of the on-going technological advancement, which has changed the daily life routines of most human beings across the globe. Accordingly, the paper will ponder on the following essay question: After choosing a cultural practice of self-presentation that takes place in the current culture of setting a facebook profile, what such a practice will divulge about the self and its relationship to the society? Following arguments would try to answer this question. Meaning of everyday life Common meaning of everyday life would start from the mechanical act of brushing teeth- being the first thing in the morning, taking breakfast, attending college or work, having lunch, shopping, cleaning the house and other similar chores. However, thse daily routine jobs are so mechanical that no one is interested in finding their deeper meaning. As most of the tasks that a person undertakes seem to be monotonous, the meaning of everyday life remains a mystery as people live to complete these tasks that include getting a job after graduation, raising family, traveling for pleasure during their life time. These chores are taken for granted to live a life, on daily basis. However, it is essential to understand the significance of small chores, which people do not remember that have an impact on everyday life. People might have changed these daily routine jobs over a period without recognizing the reason for doing so. Hence, pondering about the impact of culture change on everyday life is necessary. However, there are certain chores that a person does not perform everyday and these tasks do not have any link with cultural changes as well. For example, a New Year Day will come only once a year, some natural disaster may occur unannounced and on certain days people may enjoy fairs or carnivals. In addition, people may not follow everyday life routine on holidays, as many would like to go on a short trip while some may like to sleep throughout the day. Accordingly, defining everyday life would mean that it is cyclic but can have some unpredictable features as well. In addition, everyday life is confined to a familiar space as a home address signifies the identity of a person. Everyday life is what people take for granted and thus is a sign of normality. (Martin, nd) Why everyday life changes As everyday life has a history, the changes come through social-cultural updates taking place in various regions. For example, the mass migration caused by World War brought changes in the everyday lives of the original habitants in Europe. Unified Germany witnessed the crushing of Berlin Wall along with the communist power. This resulted in life style changes of the people, particularly residents of East Germany. The new culture and power equation certainly affected their everyday life, as culture of consumerism and capitalism engaged these residents. .(Martin, nd) In the current net-age, the culture, residence and history of a group is presented through social media sites, as people demonstrate their everyday life via face book and Instagram posts. Visiting their pages on these and other social media sites, several times in a day, has given new meaning to everyday life. People express their views, be it on culture or politics, on microblog sites like twitter, which have authentication from certain courts also. The result is a socio-cultural setting, which crosses the borders of countries across the globe Understanding everyday life As everyday life changes with history, it is imperative to understand about the emergence of everyday life. While culture and social values brought people together, these factors significantly contributed to the emergence of everyday life and its perception was initially limited to performance of tasks being shared by all members of society. Many social scientists had their own explanations for understanding the everyday life. While George Lukacs defined this term as an instrument for people to relate with the social world, the German sociologist George Samuel defined the rituals and tasks of everyday life as being part of the social obligations. However, these rituals changed with the onset of new social values, which brought cultural changes as well. For example, industrial consumerism replaced the ritual of celebrating the agricultural harvest, while feminist awakening in European and American continent changed the characteristics of various daily rituals. In addition, the changed economic conditions of certain regions resulted in the changed perception of socio-cultural values of these regions, thus forging new everyday life routine work for the habitants. (Bennett & Watson) Self-presentation in everyday life This starts with the term called self-introduction. While interacting with a new group of people it is essential to self-introduce in a proper manner. The group members need to know the background of such a person before the interaction. There are many sources of this information that the group can access, which include the style, dress, body language and spoken word of the person. However, the prevailing social and cultural values significantly affect these factors, as every day life routine determines these values.(Goffmane- presentation, nd) In the present context, the formation of ‘friends group’ at social media sites like facebook is an example of this feature. People would like to visit and review the newcomer’s page before providing permission to join the group. As it evident from many such groups on this social site, people sharing similar social and cultural values join one particular group, as they share their everyday life with each other. According to goffmane, the presentation of self has relation to many factors concerning the social and cultural background of the person. Commenting on the affect of performance by an individual, the social thinker states that people judge the person by employing varied criteria that has bearing on the culture and social class of such individual. The physical setting that surrounds the person conveys a lot to the audience responsible for observing and judging the person. Such setting is permanent in nature, as anybody who shifts to a new home needs change in his personal settings. However, the author argues that such permanency has different meaning to different characters. For example, a ruler will find comfort in staying at a permanent place, while a peddler may be comfortable shifting from one place to another. This again reflects the way people present themselves in everyday life. These concepts, when applied to setting and maintaining a facebook profile, have similar meaning, as people would like to stay on the particular page of the site, within the selected group. However, relation of a person with everyday life performances will relate to other meanings of setting as well. For example, a doctor will have some kind of setting that involves medical equipment, a bureaucrat may have different settings as he or she moves from one posting to another. The setting of the office in any case reflects upon the performance of the person. An example in this direction is a comment from one New Yorker profile on the estate agent who masterminded the sale of Empire State Building, Roger Stevens, saying that Steven had a meager office with no stationary like letterheads.(Goffmane—performances, nd) Social status and class determines the culture of a person, as observed through the individual’s performances. For example, a factory group of workers belongs to a class and culture, which is different from that of the managerial employees. The performances of both the groups are different and they reflect on the everyday life chores of people belonging to these social classes. Accordingly, the status symbols attached to residents of a particularly region would reflect upon their social class and culture, thus affecting their everyday life tasks. In countries like India, society is divided among four classes of people and this classification presents the caste system prevalent in this region. However, the tendency to move up the ladder of caste system ultimately affects the performance of a person trying to do so. For example, a person of “Kshtari” caste in India would like to imitate the daily ritual performances of a higher class Brahmins. This would eventually involve adopting the everyday life habits of Brahmins like vegetarianism and teetotalism habits by the person belonging to “Kshatri” caste. The present life style is full of evidences that indicate the performances of people showcasing the wealth and position to justify their social status, across the world.(Gofmane-performances, nd) This is true of social media sites like facebook as well, where people always try to highlight their status through posts that display their wealth and position. Class matters Although people in certain regions like Australia believe in the notion of a classless society, the fact remains that class is always visible and matters. For example, Austrian factories will select floor workers from lower income group while considering only the individuals from higher income group for managerial position. In fact, selection process involves screening of information regarding social and income class of every prospective candidate. The information required during such screening procedure involves all components of the individual’s class like the family background, education and occupations held. In addition, class has other components like the ethnic background, gender and race.(Mcgregor, nd) The current computer aided technology has added a new definition to this social class, which eventually results in changing everyday life pattern. The “work from home” concept is catching on with most IT related businesses, as it is proving cost effective while saving on the required office space. However, this incorporates the flexibility in the daily routines of such worker, as the daily life activities would require changes and adjustments according to the set priorities of working from home requisites.(Melissa, nd) Conclusion In nutshell, everyday life changes according to the demands of prevailing society. While people may perform daily tasks almost mechanically, they adjust to these changes easily over the period, without thinking much about it. Social media sites are the first indicators of such changes as investigation into facebook profiles would indicate. Works Cited Bennette.T & Watson. D, (nd) Understnding everyday life: Introduction . book, Retrieved from: http://writer.academia-research.com/file/get/instr/1251426/file/bennetttwatsond_understandingeverydaylif_.pdf Goffmane, (nd). Performances—The Presentation of self in Everyday Life. Book Retrieved from: http://writer.academia-research.com/file/get/instr/1251426/file/goffmane_performancesextract_-2.pdf Goffmane (nd) Introdution—The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, . Book Retrieved from: http://writer.academia-research.com/file/get/instr/1251426/file/goffmane_introduction_.pdf Martrin. F, (nd). Introduction—Interpreting Everyday culture. Book. Retrieved from: http://writer.academia-research.com/file/get/instr/1251426/file/martinf_introduction_-2.pdf McGregor, (nd). Class Counts. Book. Retrieved from: http://writer.academia-research.com/file/get/instr/1251426/file/mcgregor_classcounts_.pdf Mellisa. G, (nd). Working from home—The Connectivity Imperative. Book. Retrieved from: http://writer.academia-research.com/file/get/instr/1251426/file/greggmelissa_workingfromhomethemobile_.pdf Read More