Social Interaction and Everyday Life in the Age of the Internet - Research Paper Example

? Social Interaction and Everyday Life in the Age of the Internet The process through which communities merge, attract new members and their development over time has been a critical issue in research in sociology. Religious denominations, professional organizations and political movements provide fundamental examples of these communities. In this modern era of the digital world, online groups have increased in prominence due to the growth in social networking sites and online communities. The Internet thus provides a new perspective of social interaction. This paper adopts a macrosociology analysis model as discussed by Ferris and Stein (2012) to determine how the widespread adoption of the Internet has socially impacted on individuals and the society at large. Through sociological imagination, the paper would examine how the Internet has propagated social inequality and exclusion, revolutionized consumerism and created virtual communities. Introduction The tendency of people coming together to form groups has been considered inherent in the society’s structure. The group sociology studies largely inform the analysis of sociological phenomena, for instance, evolution of a group within an organization could provide insight into the decision making behavior, dynamics of specific subpopulations and how Internet based forums have affected sociological dynamics. Indeed, Ferris and Stein (2012) appreciate the various ways in which social changes could occur such as the current widespread usage of the Internet. The origin of the Internet has been attributed to the 1969 US Defense Department’s ARPNET and has now been adopted globally even for social uses. The emergence of the Internet brought with it new concepts in sociology and influenced the knowledge and research in sociology. Sociology as a field involves the study of a varied range of institutional structures in the society to give insights into social relationships. In their determination of whether the Internet would socially isolate people, Mohseni, Dowran and Haghighat (2008) noted that sociologists would be more concerned with social implications of the Internet including the new forms of interaction, cyber crime, virtual communities and many more. The rapid growth in Internet adoption has caused much debate on the social impact it has on humans. According to Brignall and Valey (2011), the Internet came to reinforce the existing social patterns. Thus, the online interaction borne out of the emergence of the Internet became the new form of social interaction. This digital domain has to a greater extent influenced online communities and the social media due to the increase in usage of social networking sites from Friendster to the recent systems like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LiveJournal among many others. These growing societies provide sociologists with the need to shift the perspective of sociology to considering how people group themselves, now that physical location would no longer be considered as a barrier to socialization. Of major concern has been how the Internet communities intertwine to affect real world societies. Social impact of the internet According to Canavagh (2007), the Internet differs from the mass media in that online interaction involves addressing individuals as opposed to addressing the mass. This characterizes identity formation basically through social interaction. Brignall III and Valey (2011) give critical statistics that inform the magnitude of impact that the Internet has in the society, even though the data was based on users aged between 12 and 18. According to these researchers, 35 % of the subjects spent between 30 minutes to an hour everyday online while 44% spent more than an hour. As s way of communication, 81% used emails whereas 70% used instant messaging. Introducing the idea of technological determinism, Ferris and Stein (2012) acknowledge the important role that technology such as the Internet plays in shaping the society. Social inequality How the Internet causes social exclusion and inequality has been a major area of study in sociology. The Internet provides various capabilities that could be used by people in their everyday lives including carrying out research, paying bills online and socializing with people. For this category of people, the Internet would be considered as a source of modernizing and improving their lives. But for those who do have the capabilities of accessing these services of the Internet either due to unavailability of the relevant services or lack of knowledge would be deprived of the social opportunities and benefits that could be reaped from use of the Internet. This leads to and propagates segregation of a particular group of people in the society (Mohseni, Dowran & Haghighat, 2008). For instance, the uneducated persons would probably not have access to the Internet, but even if they did, their use of the Internet would not be as efficient as that of the educated lot. Furthermore, as the older people find it more difficult to use the Internet it widens the gap between them and the younger generation. This postulation has indeed been supported by Brignall III and Valey (2011) who observed that even though the teenagers do not make up the largest composition of Internet users yet, the growth in their composition of Internet users keeps growing rapidly. Even so, the researchers appreciate the heavy usage of the Internet by the young people noting that 74% of the American residents aged between 12 and 18 use the Internet. This has made majority of the younger generation to be ahead of their parents who experience cultural lag as they tend to stick to the older alternative approaches. Therefore, adopting the cultural diffusion terminology by Ferris and Stein (2012), this indicates that the Internet culture diffusion among the young as being higher than among the older generations. With the prevalence of the Internet, social networking, political participation, newspapers and books all become virtual-based. In fact, there would be certain information that would only be available in the Internet, and the trend keeps rising. Since some activities have been entirely transformed to being Internet based, those without access to such services become excluded from the larger society. The participation in public life has become heavily reliant on the Internet and being competent in it, such that those without Facebook accounts, email addresses or LikedIn accounts and the rest become victims of social inequality. Consumerism The way people purchase goods and services has been changed by the Internet. Just some years back, one would not make purchases without leaving the house. In the modern world however, the Internet would allow for online purchases and delivery to one’s residence. With the widespread adoption of this trend, social seclusion tends to be imminent. Brignall III and Valey (2011) support this postulation further noting that with the shrinkage in face-to-face interactions, presentation of self and social skills become adversely affected in the society. People without cultural, normative communication and civility skills find it difficult to successfully interact with others. Furthermore, the information exchange on goods and services has transformed. Before the Internet, people would depend on information from families and friends and reviews to acquire information on certain goods or services. But with the Internet, people have appreciated consumer research as a simple task, being executed online. The online social communities have been widely associated with affecting consumer traits with Brignall III and Valey appreciating that “an individual’s concept of self is shaped by the sum of the social interactions in which that individual engages” (2011, p.338). Furthermore, self would be influenced by other people’s judgment. This could be explained through collective behavior where a group influences how its members take action towards a shared objective (Ferris & Stein, 2012). Being a social group that promotes a specific social adaptation or resistance to particular adaptations, then this would be effectively explained as a social movement. Entrepreneurs also have vast opportunities presented by the Internet in their interactions with the buyers of their products and services. These entrepreneurs would provide customers with various mechanisms through which they would report their experiences with the products including pissed consumer, complaints and rip off reports, determining how the suppliers would configure their products to suit customer expectations thus benefit from higher sales. Brignall III and Valey (2011) observed the opportunities in circulation to wide audience and also in flattening hierarchies thus dilute power from the elites known to monopolize information. Virtual communities As noted by Brignall III and Valey (2011), the heaviest Internet users encompass people chatting online. These people categorize themselves according to their association traits. As people categorize themselves in sites such as Facebook and MySpace and also in online chat rooms, various categories would be formed which would result in division within the larger group forming social communities and networks. The physical location would no longer be important in determining the community to which one belongs and people would connect to each other without even meeting in person. Zhao refers to this as the transformation from the “here and now” interaction to that of places in the world which have been made to appear online (2006; p.463). This online public domain residing in the electronic networks allows for many-to-many contact in an anonymous environment. Just like the real world communities, these online communities have their cultures, norms, guidelines and expectations which greatly inform sociology. Ferris and Stein (2012) appreciate the potential impact of these communities by appreciating the influence of collective action. This would be referred to as mass behavior where large groups would adopt similar behaviors without necessarily being in the same place. Early sociological studies have suggested the reduction in face-to-face social interactions, increasing isolation and rates of depression in the society. It has also been argued that the Internet opens up receipt of massive applications from prospective employees which in turn makes recruitment and selection a tedious process. These early findings dwelling on the negative impact of the Internet has been widely debated and overturned (Mohseni, Dowran & Haghighat, 2008). Against some of these earlier postulations that argued on the negative impact of lack of face-to-face interaction as propagated by use of the Internet, Canavagh (2007) appreciates its importance noting that it encourages the interaction among the unacquainted persons. According to this researcher, an exposed position on someone opens up approachability and contact between strangers. Zhao (2006) further supports this postulation giving an example of people who could have met in an online chat room, exchanged emails and used them to exchange telephone contacts then engage each other on phone and eventually meet face-to-face. Therefore, while appreciating the findings that criticized the Internet for hampering face-to-face interactions, it would still be important to appreciate that the relationships which started in the virtual context of say the Internet could be transplanted to the face-to-face context. From the research by Brignall III and Valey (2011), an interesting postulation arises where online behavior differs from offline behavior. For instance, a person could misrepresent oneself by feigning a different sexual orientation, skin color, gender or physical location. Other differences in the exhibited behavior could include openly displaying violation to group norms such as racism, sexism, behavior, personal attacks and tendencies to abandon group conversations without dealing with issues. This postulation therefore indicates the need to identify and compare interpersonal communication elements to face-to-face interactions. Relevance of the Internet in sociology Khademhoseiny (2010) has argued on the emergence of technological systems through a struggle over meanings involving various social actors. Deconstruction of the technical design back to the social interaction logic would be drawn from relevant social groups. These social groups, whether organized or not have the members sharing the same set of meanings which would be attached to specific artifact. This explains the social constructivist theory. It postulates that the Internet would be shaped by social practices modified every other day through online activities. The social character influence by technology like the Internet would not be homogeneous but rather heterogeneous and dependent upon social relations and users and consumers. Conclusion The Internet has greatly transformed human interactions with each other. Social interaction has now been disconnected from physical location giving rise to various implications that sociologists would be keen to understand. These implications could be considered as good or bad depending on the context with the major implications discussed in this paper including enhancement of social inequality and exclusion, guiding on consumerism and creation of virtual communities. The online activities made possible by the Internet shapes behaviors in the society thus the importance of understanding its impact on social interaction. References Brignall III, T. W. & Valey, T. V. (2011). The impact of internet communications on social interaction. Sociological Spectrum, 25 (3), 335 – 348. Canavagh, A. (2007). Sociology in the age of the Internet. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education. Ferris, K. & Stein, J. (2012). The real world: an introduction to sociology. 3rd ed. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company Inc. Khademhoseiny, M. (2010). The sociology of Internet shaping. Retrieved 25 November 2012 from http://journal.webscience.org/336/2/websci10_submission_21.pdf Mohseni, M., Dowran, B. & Haghighat, M. H. S. (2008). Does the Internet make people socially isolated? A social network approach. Bangladesh e-Journal of Sociology, 5 (1), 1 – 13. Retrieved 25 November 2012 from www.bangladeshsociology.org Zhao, S. (2006). The internet and the transformation of the reality of everyday life: toward a new analytic stance in sociology. Sociological Inquiry, 76 (4), 458 – 474. Read More