Sociological Imagination and Sociologic Approach to the Situation - Essay Example

Sociological Imagination Sociological Imagination Everyday Situation It is interesting looking at the way life has changed today comparing it to the way things were being handled in the past. The improvement and advancement in technology has been much of a blessing and also much of a curse to the human generation. Take for instance how the children are being brought up in this generation compared to the way they were being brought up in the past. Nowadays, the improvement in technology has made it really hard to bring up a child. Unlike in the past where the child would be encouraged to play with other children and in the process improve on his or her social development, these days the child will most likely spend hours glued to the television watching the favorite cartoon movie without moving. Apart from this, the child may spend the rest of the time playing the virtual computer games that leave him or her with little time to spend with say parents or other people in the society. The consequences of this change in the way things used to happen is the main concern. The child fails to be introduced to a real world and due to the excessive use of the video games and the movies they embrace the virtual world as the way things need to be done. The social development of the children is therefore greatly impaired. They also fail to grow psychologically and they may acquire serious problems in being able to interact with people in the future. This poses a question on whether the improvement in technology is worth to be viewed much of a blessing or it has just come to complicate things further and tamper with the way things used to be done in the past. Failure to engage in activity by the children has also been reported to cause medical complications such as obesity among others. Second, let’s look at the way the advancement in technology has affected the youth. The main area that has been overhauled is the communication sector. The establishment of the various social media platforms have made communication really easy. These include twitter, Facebook, whatsapp, Instalgram and many others. All one has to do is own an account in these platforms and he/she can interact with millions of users across the globe. With the use of these sites it has become increasingly hard for the people to live morally and interact in a healthy way. Many of the people are living in a virtual world where they can only be able to express the way they think, feel etc. through the social sites. When it comes to the real life situations, you find the same person cannot even express him/herself in a straight manner. Another ill that has emerged is online bullying where some people are able to intimidate others using crude methods in the platforms. This has happened mainly to lady users where a stranger may claim to be interested in her and then if she falls prey to the requirements given they may end up being abducted, kidnapped or conned loads of cash. This has raised real concerns in regard to the use and improvements reported in the communications sector. A Sociologic Approach to the Situation There proves to be a very serious disconnect between the ways different institutions handle the issue of technological advancement. In this study let us restrict ourselves to just two institutions, the family and the school and the role they have played and the way they should act towards the same issue. Education has helped in a great way to address the social gap that is being introduced by the change and the social gap created by the changing technology. Education has been fast to adapt the new changes and use them to enhance delivering of the concepts that are learned in school (Sassen, 2002). The same concepts that are applied in say the games the children play have been used constructively to ensure that they appreciate sociologically. This is done in the following ways. First the video games have got the aims/objectives that need to be achieved. This makes the young child to learn how to set objectives and be able to achieve them. This is made easier by the availability of the games in many households and so almost every child can be able to access them from a tender age. Another important feature that has been brought by the use and utilized by the instructors is the following of instructions using the games. Each game has its rules. It is very easy to teach a topic about following of instructions using a video game. This way the whole thing is made more real and interesting especially to the young minds as they need something that will not only be interesting but also something that addresses their contemporary society and the things that they are used to. According to a study done by Emrich, 2005, more than half of the American population have and play video games at home. This makes it possible for the young children to access the video games at least for fifteen hours in a given week (Dawley, 2006). Due to this, the children are already acquitted with the basic knowledge on how to use them. When they get to school, the teachers can use it as a good way of making them useful by introducing the concepts learnt in school. Socialization is an important aspect in the growth of any given child. It is the process whereby the child through conscious and unconscious ways learns the beliefs, rules and the regulations of the society. The process is enhanced and facilitated by the people the child is interaction with and the role they play in his/her life. The immediate environment helps the child to establish his/her social status and understand their role in the society. These are often dictated by the age, gender and the type of society that they are living in. In our environment we have looked at the home and school as our immediate environment and the role they can play to ensure that the advancement in technology does not serve negatively in the sociological growth of the child. The child’s time should be allocated to go into important activities to help them in their sociological and psychological development (Ritzer, 1996; Sassen, 2002). While looking at the way the change in communication has been brought up by the new developments in technology, it is important to note that the youth are so vulnerable to the negative impacts of such ills as they are exposed to them at all times. Acquiring a device that is able to connect to the internet has become increasingly easy in the modern times and that is all that is needed to be able to access the social platforms. The usage of the social platforms is hard to monitor since any user is entitled to their privacy and security measures that one assents to before getting the account. This means that the rights of the individual to their privacy cannot be infringed at any given moment. What needs to be done is to establish a way whereby the youth and social media users are responsible and able to use it in a constructive manner. Take for instance a lady who has just completed high school and so overwhelmed by the bout of freedom that she has been bestowed with. This will mean that she may decide to access the social sites and before she realizes it she already in the fangs of the media gurus who can take advantage of her to manipulate and intimidate her. Social media bullying is a common term when it comes to the usage and it involves the situation whereby one may even receive death threats from anonymous accounts. This really interferes with the persons’ social development and how they are able to interact with people. The way the young people use the social platforms should always be monitored and if need be an age barrier should be established to ensure that before the person is exposed to the atrocities that he/she is likely to come across in the social media they are well prepared. These people usually find the social platforms as the ideal sites where they can be able to express their feelings and ideas without being intimidated. They may be suffering from conditions where they find it totally hard to express themselves well in-front of say their friends or even the seniors. This becomes an ill when the person is through with his/her study and is expected to work in a team that is aimed at becoming productive by being united. The person will not be able to interact well with the people in the team and hence production in the organization will be affected. To address this it is good to monitor how people use the social media and establish better ways of addressing people who may be suffer from conditions that lower their self-esteem. This will enhance their sociological and psychological growth. Reflection Common Sense The discussion part has encompassed the skills in common sense to evaluate the situation that has been addressed. Common sense involves the use of life truths that have accumulated over time to make critical decisions. In this work we have addressed the advancement in technology and the way it has affected the society from a social point of view. Sociological Thinking Sociological thinking is a rigorous and systematic process of evaluating life situations and coming up with an explanation that solves or comes up with a solution. Sociological thinking is better identified by the use of references as we have used in the sections above. The work cited should be reliable and it may also involve our own research on the topic. The Topic This section will involve careful consideration of the ideas brought up earlier in the essay and how the topic and the argument has been built. The topic that is addressed involves the advancement in technology and its impacts on the social development of people in different ages. In the first section we have noted the way the little children up-to to the age of around ten years embrace video games and movies as the way they utilize their free time. This is one of the impacts that has been a development of the technological advancement (Bloor, 1976). Teachers and parents in this area have the responsibility to ensure that the social growth as well as the biological development of the child is not tampered by the way the same use these items. It is common to find children who are really addicted to the games to such a way that they cannot participate in real life issues and activities as most of the times they are just glued to the computers or the other devices that the games are installed on. The ones who are not addicted to the video games may be regular watchers of the movies that are available in many television channels. The negative impacts of both traits and habits have been addressed where you find that the children fails to develop well psychologically as they are used to living and interacting with virtual characters say in the video games or in the movies (Sassen, 2002). Once the same person is allowed to interact with other children they may be found to be aggressive or unable to talk and express themselves in a manner that is desired. Some of the video games involve use of aggressive measures to counter the opponent. When the same games are played by young children they may learn the negative aspects of the game and in due course they may decide to use the same methods while dealing with other children in the neighborhood. The negative health impacts of engaging in such include having conditions such as obesity as it has been addressed earlier in the essay which are brought by the lack of active participation in games and the food that the child eats (Durkheim, 1982). However, to counter these ills, the curriculum developers have come up with ways that the same can be incorporated in the learning systems and help the children in their social and educational development. The games involve adhering to specific instructions and having strict set objectives that need to be accomplished at the end of the game. This has been found to be very important in introducing the children to real life situations and how they should learn to follow instructions and set objectives and work hard to achieve them. This way it has become possible to learn positively from the same. The time used by a normal child in a week playing the games ranges from 12-18 hours (Sassen, 2002). The time should be regulated to ensure that the child does not become addicted to the games at the expense of some other important issues. The teachers and the parents have the responsibility to ensure that the child grows in all aspects and the advancement in technology does not serve as a negative impact to the growth. In the last section of the work the advancement in technology impacts on communication have been addressed. We are living in a world where the internet is one of the most important things and the whole world has been reduced to one small village. This has been made possible by the great improvements and innovations that have dominated the communication industry. With such it is possible to interact and socialize with virtually everyone across the globe as long as they have a device that is connected to the internet. As any other development, the same has come up with its bout of limitations and disadvantages. The youth are the main victims when it comes to the negative impacts of the same. Growing socially in a world where you almost always interact with virtual elements is one of the hardest things (Sassen, 2002). This has yielded a generation of people who are very good users of the social platforms but who are unable to express themselves in a good way when it comes to real life situations. The people who have low self-esteem have been found to be the most vulnerable in this issue as they find the social platforms as the solace to address their conditions. Here they are able to express themselves well to the people who have got no clue of whom they are interacting with. However, when it comes to real life situations the same person will be incapable of expressing themselves in the best way. The paper has also discussed social media bullying which has come up with the excessive use of the same. To address the issue the paper proposes that an age barrier should be established to ensure that the people who are exposed to the social platforms are not vulnerable to falling victims. The advancement in technology has yielded people who are half baked socially and who are unable to interact with people when it comes to real life situations. These people are unable to interact with others especially when they are introduced into the job market. At this point they are supposed to have team spirit so that they can be able to deliver well and interact with other people in the team or organization that they have been introduced to. This therefore calls for stern measures to monitor such usage to prevent the technological advancement to impact negatively on the social growth of the people (Sassen, 2002). Bibliography Bloor, D. (1976). ‘Knowledge and Social Imagery.’ London: Routledge Publishers. Durkheim, E. (1982). ‘The Rules of Sociological method’. London: Macmillan Press Ltd. Ritzer, G. (1996). ‘Sociological Theory’. London: McGraw_Hill. Sassen, S. (May 2002). ‘Towards a Sociology of Information Technology.’ London: Sage Publications. Vol. 50(3). Read More