I have to say that I feel privileged to be alive at this time and age and more so to be phase this social life.
This is out of the fact that we are experiencing a different type of social culture from the one we have heard of or learned from our history. Today’s social lifestyle is rich with diversity and this is what I discover exciting about it. To be a member of this culture is without a doubt overwhelming in different ways. I would want to give an explanation for this further by taking into consideration each the positives and the negative aspects.
The Positive Elements of the Social Culture
The positive elements are what make this culture exciting specifically for the youth and younger generation. As a common attribute, we get to share and benefit from the technological advances that the global world is experiencing. In my social life, I have noticed that there is nothing that connects us more than technology. This is true irrespective of where in the world a person is. Our social life today appears to be depended on technology. This is out of the fact that we interact more through technological platforms. Take for instance our phones. Technology has enabled us to achieve so much more with them than just communication. There is now the social media that everyone is a part of. Through such platforms, as a member of this social culture, I am in a position to connect and keep in touch with friends at all times. Simply put, it is exciting to be a member of the current social life because of the simplicity of interacting with people with ease.
Another benefit of this culture is the diversity of its members. Due to economic growth, the world is now turning into an international market and this also reflects on the social aspects. People from different regions and backgrounds are now coming together. This is to facilitate a number of things and as a result, we get to live in a community that is diverse thus a socially diverse culture. Orbe and Harris (78) explain that understanding interracial verbal and non-verbal codes are of importance and perhaps the reason tolerance is being experienced today. It is the manner in which we have been in a position to accept our differences to some extent that gives this culture a rich diversity. Unlike before, social life meant interacting with people of your own kind. Today, social life is all about embracing those who are racial, ethnically, economically and among other things different from you. This thus means people from different backgrounds interacting for the prosperity of human beings all over the world.
The Negative Aspects of the Social Culture
The negative aspects of this social life have to do more with racial perceptions. As explained by (Mooney), in as much as we live in a civilized society, there are still some racial perceptive that people hold that threatened to hinder any social progress that we have made thus far. Racial perceptions in simple terms can be described as associating negative attributes to a given race. For example, most blacks are perceived to be lazy, violent and criminals. As for white Americans, they are perceived to be racists. Different races have had to fight to show the rest of the world that such perceptions are unacceptable. Thus far, we have only tolerated each other in a specific way but still cannot completely do away with these perceptions. In different ways, this gets to hurt the social culture that we have built over the years are interacting with an individual from a given community proves to be difficult. For instance, the global social community is somehow of the perception that all Muslims are terrorists and therefore, they are being denied the benefit of the doubt thus having a hard time fitting into the modern social life.
Another negative that is rooted to the advantage of technological growth is that we are losing the human aspect of interaction. As human beings, we desire to interact with each other on a one on one basis but with technology, this is becoming less of a reality. We spend so much time on our phones and other internet enabled devices that we forget to embrace our human side. For this reason, families are no longer as united as before. The same goes to friendship and forms of human interactions. Communication is not the same as people become addicted to their phones and technology.
In conclusion, it is true that being a member of this social culture allows one to embrace so much more in terms of learning different racial and ethnical cultures because of the diversity of its members. To add to this, we get to understand the various interracial codes thus becoming more tolerant towards each other. However, there is the need to be extra careful with the manner in which we are allowing technology to rule over our lives. Yes, technology is a great thing as it has improved various aspects of our lives but we ought not to be too blind that we do not see its negative impacts.
Works Cited
Mooney, C. “How our brains perceive race.” Moyers & Company, 2 Dec 2014. Web, 24 Feb 2017 http://billmoyers.com/2014/12/02/science-cops-shoot-young-black-men/
Orbe, Mark and Tina Harris. Interracial Communication. Theory Into Practice. Los Angeles: Sage, 2015.
