Name: Lam Ka Wing Carrie

UID: 3035792559
Word count: 1177
Topic: How is sociology being applied to human daily life in terms of individuals and
the public?
 
I am writing this reflective memo to record my learning process and how I applied
sociological imagination into daily life. Before attending lectures and tutorials, I was
not sure about how sociology associates with our social behavior and thoughts. By
looking deep into the matter, I observe that much of the social connections are
evolved from sociology theories and understand social lives from a new perspective.
In the following paragraphs, I would examine some of the sociology theories and
present how sociology is being applied to my interpersonal relationship in daily life,
even extending to the global perspective.
 
Before sharing my own observation, key founders of sociology should be clearly
stated, who are Marx, Durkheim and Weber. To be noted, Marx explains the effects
of capitalism which connect with the conflict theories, which are the extension of
Marx’s Class Struggle. It means that unequal distribution of social resources is the
main cause of social change, triggering inequality, power and struggle whereas it
maintains the normal functioning of a society so that scarce resources can be
distributed in a logical manner. To add on to this theory, according to Johnson,
differences exist within societies which are a basis for privilege, in the context of
social status, race, identity, power, etc. The reason behind this phenomenon is that
people tend to think of things only in terms of individuals instead of groups. This
reminds me of the controversy between individualism and collectivism, which is
often portrayed in our daily life. Individualism is especially advocated in Western
societies. By globalization, Western values are widely influencing the East. Therefore,
it is not surprising that the traditional Chinese values are eliminated and most are
moving towards greater individualism in this modern era. 

In our social interactions in daily life, individualism is depicted within groups more
than one. For example, increasing narcissism and higher break-up rates have been
reflected in my social circle. My teammate is a great example to illustrate
individualism as she is self-centred and doesn’t care about others feelings.  As a
consequence, she broke up with her boyfriends usually no longer than 2 months.
Another example is that one of my friends tends to live alone instead of finding a
partner as he prioritizes independence and uniqueness. Even me, individualism
affects me to a certain extent because I usually think from my own perspective and I
prefer independent work rather than cooperating with others. Looking at the big
picture, taking countries as a unit, the United Nations encourages close cooperation
among countries to deal with global issues such as global warming. Nevertheless, the
reality is that each country only cares about their profits and interests. Thus, they are
reluctant to sign global declarations or not abide by treaties because they are not
willing to sacrifice their capitals or resources. One may argue there are still cross-
national differences in individualism-collectivism while Orientalism is depicted as
more collective, the pandemic covid-19 proves that even the Eastern countries close
the borders and avoid cross-border flow on the basis of nationalism and public
health. In short, individualism is reflected not only in the context of one individual
but also a group, even a global context. 

Another one of the most remarkable topics is socialisation, which represents the
process of learning culture whereas values and norms are the main ideas of culture.
In applying the concept of socialization to my own life, I have identified my family,
peers, educational institutions and media as the most crucial and specific in shaping
my cultural identity and values. Family education is the fundamental learning agent
of an individual, which gives me the first system of values, norms and beliefs,for
instance, with good virtues imparted, such as familial loyalty, filial piety, have shaped
my basic ideologies toward interpersonal relationships. Different parenting styles
may give rise to the establishment of different personal identities. For me, my
parents guide me how to handle close relationships, group life, etc step by step
during my growth phase. As a consequence, I can apply those appropriate
approaches in my peer groups. Within a group, it is like a stage for me to perform
interpersonal skills or leadership  on my own terms, especially during adolescence.
As I care about the opinions of peers and hope to be recognized by my closest friend,
peers have an incredible amount of influence on me. Recalling from my experience,
my personalities are slightly altered by peer influence as I am originally an introvert,
but in order to participate in peer discussion and extend my social circle, I would try
to be more active and cater for their interests. Thus, peers actually socialize us by
reinforcing or punishing behaviors or interpersonal interactions. 

For educational institutions, schooling is secondary socialization which takes after

family (primary socialization). At school, teachers play a vital role in educating
students soft skills such as self-discipline and communication skills, even life
philosophy. I remembered that my respectable teacher told me that there are no
shortcuts in life, which is deeply engraved on my memory. I realised that only
perseverance can help me reach my life goals, which is enlightening. The last
socialisation agent is the media. Contemporary societies are characterised by rapid
social change, which is furthered by developments in media and technology. For me,
some of my beliefs are influenced by the media in a way that I am in favour of
hedonism and consumerism when witnessing YouTubers buying luxury goods and
travelling. Gradually, I found that my shopping behaviour is altered, driven by
emotions. As a result, the media also instills values and norms in me. 

Lastly, I will utilise my sociological imagination and link my private troubles to public
issues. Everyday behavior such as addiction to  social media can be illustrated to a
broad base. Nowadays, everyone browses social media once they wake up every
morning, with no exception of me. It influences my social life and it  is indeed
changing the society as well, which will be analyzed one by one. First, social media
makes my social skills go down the drain as I favour media communication over face-
to-face interaction. However, when social media is used by the masses, there is an
invisible power that could spread positive energy to the society. Once we apply
sociological imagination with optimism, we can discover the overuse of social media
could give strength to those people who are frustrated to communicate in real life
and become their own comfort zones. As a result, when we look at the big picture by
sociological imagination, the addiction to social media may be that negative at all
and it is prevalent for people to connect with others via this agent globally. 

To conclude, our daily life is often associated with groups in society. Through
learning sociology, I get more insights into social interactions in several situations
and get to understand them by sociologists’ theories from different perspectives, in
which I only focus on the learning outcomes of individualism and socialisation and
sociological imagination in this reflective memo. Thus,I will further investigate the
other theories in the next lectures.