Blog 11: Social Construction of Reality

In class this week we discussed the work of Peter Burger, as well as his concept of the social construction of reality. He described society as an invention of mankind and that there is a definite process in how things become integrated into society. The process begins with externalization, in which humans imitate behavior that they have observed others doing. An example of this would be imitating a new handshake that you saw someone do. This then turns into habitualization, in which this behavior turns into a habit, where no thought is given to why you do the behavior as it has become automatic. This would occur when you've done the new handshake so much that you don't even realize that it's how you greet everyone you meet. Finally, the behavior gets to institutionalization, in which it is now accepted by society and encouraged by others, further beginning the process anew with others imitating the behavior. This is when the handshake has become popular enough that you see others whom you're not familiar with doing it as well.

A modern day example of this would be the popularity explosion of Facebook. When it first started, it was very much confined to specific colleges and college students were the only ones who were predominantly using it.  Their friends then found out about this social media site and then began externalization through imitating others they had seen in going to the website to see what the excitement was about. This gradually turns to habit as they log on every day and pretty soon it is a part of their normal routine whenever they are on the internet. Facebook became widely institutionalized once it had spread widely enough to the point where the individuals who first started using it through imitation didn't recognize those that were now using it.  I can agree that this was similar to my first experiences of Facebook. When I first got onto the site I didn't entirely understand the appeal, as it seemed to me to be a watered down version of Myspace (of which I was a frequent user back in middle school). However, through imitating my friend's online behavior and checking it out, I gradually began to make a habit out of going on Facebook every day after school. Now it's gotten to the point where I have Facebook set as my home page and often leave that tab open even if I'm not planning on doing anything with it. It's become so fully institutionalized that there seems to be a stigma formed towards individuals who don't "have a Facebook".

                                                             

This is now a universally recognized logo, whereas ten years ago, no one would know what this is.