provisions for bike and walking paths throughout the town, and ordinances that establish an environment of tolerance for people who are “different.”
* * * * * * *
Richard Florida heads the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, and the Creative Communities Leadership Program. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University and his doctorate in urban planning from Columbia University (Florida 2017).
Thinking Sociologically
Why do some communities attract creative people? What are some characteristics of these communities? What might be advantages—or disadvantages—to living in a creative community? Would you like to live in such a community? Why or why not? How do you think growing up in such a community would impact your choice of a career and friends?
What will the future bring? Futurologists predict new trends based on current activities and predictions of new advances and technologies on the horizon. Among the many ideas for the future, technological advances dominate the field. Predictions include the increasing use of cell phones connecting the poorest corners of the globe with the rest of the world. One billion mobile phone users are predicted for China by 2020, with 80% of the population having cell phones. With discovery and efficient use of energy being central to sociocultural evolution, alternative energy sources from wind to solar power will become essential to meet demand. Plug-in hybrids, natural gas, and electric batteries may replace gasoline motors. One million hydrogen-fueled cars are predicted for the United States by the year 2035, and far more for Europe and Japan. Gas may be on the way out. Rechargeable batteries that run for 40 hours without interruption will run most home appliances by 2030. Other energy advances include LEDs (light-emitting diodes); energy on demand from mix-and-match sources; “smart” home devices; “smart” city infrastructures to meet needs for energy, transit, and roads; breathalyzer cars; extinguishers that put out forest fires with sound; edge-of-space balloon rides; and so much more (Kleinman 2014; Science Focus 2016). Brain computer interfaces will give paralyzed people the ability to control their environments (National Institutes of Health 2012). These are just a few of the many predictions of what will affect societies and alter human interactions.
In much of this book we focus on complex, multilevel societies, for this is the type of social environment in which most of us reading this book now live. Much of this book also focuses on social interaction and social structures, including interpersonal networking, the growth of bureaucratic structures, social inequality within the structure, and the core institutions necessary to meet the needs of individuals and society. In short, hardware—society—is the focus of many subsequent chapters. The remainder of this chapter focuses primarily on the social software—culture.
Culture: The Software
Culture, the way of life shared by a group of people, includes the ideas and “things” passed on from one generation to the next in a society, including knowledge, beliefs, values, rules and laws, language, customs, symbols, and material products. It varies greatly as we travel across the globe. Each social unit of interdependent people, whether at the micro, meso, or macro level, develops a unique way of life with guidelines for the actions and interaction of individuals and groups within society.
As you can see, the sociological definition of culture refers to far more than “high or elite culture” shared by a select few—such as fine art, classical music, opera, literature, ballet, and theater—and also far more than “popular culture”—such as reality TV, professional wrestling, YouTube, and other mass entertainment. Popular culture is mass produced and consumed and becomes part of everyday traditions through its practices, beliefs, and material objects. It influences public opinion and values. Music, a form of pop culture, has many forms; for example, rap music often focuses on urban culture’s politics, economics, and inequality and provides an outlet for frustrations through musical commentary. Much of pop culture has been shaped by technology, as we see in texting and social media. The rapid change in this aspect of popular culture is illustrated in the next Engaging Sociology.
Engaging Sociology
Pop Culture Technology Timeline
© Getty/Bernhard Lang
How surprising to think that digital telephones, high-speed lines for computers, digitized print media, and the World Wide Web were all invented within about the past half century, many within the last 20 years. Vinyl records, dial telephones, VHS tapes, and more recently CDs and DVDs have been surpassed by smartphones and streamed and downloaded movies and music. Slim laptops, tablets, and handheld computers have replaced bulky desktop computers. The following timeline shows the advances of the Internet and World Wide Web in recent years; the point of this timeline is to illustrate the rapid advance of technology and the place it holds in our lives. Technology is now a primary conveyor of culture, especially pop culture.
An Internet and World Wide Web Timeline
1946: The first general-purpose computer is created, developed for military purposes.
1951: The first civilian computer is created.
1971: The first personal computer (PC) is launched.
1978: Cellular phone service begins.
1982: Invention of high-speed communications network leads to the Internet.
1984: Apple’s Macintosh introduces the first PC with graphics.
1991: The Internet opens to commercial use; the World Wide Web is launched.
1996: Google makes its debut.
2002: Amazon Web Services debuts, followed in 2006 by Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud.
2004: Mark Zuckerberg debuts Facebook while still a college student.
2005: YouTube is created by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim.
2009: “Killer apps” from Microsoft and Google debut.
2013: Wristbands to collect biological data and living, breathing running shoes debut.
2014: Video glasses with head-mounted display screen debut, and smartwatches connect to the Internet and smartphones.
2015: Three-dimensional computer cursors and robotic exoskeletons are controlled by human thoughts.
2018: Genetically modified future challenges humans to think about the relationship between technology and society (Illing 2018).
The continuing rapid advances in technology have paralleled the development of shared pop culture in the United States and around the world, culture that is accessible to everyone. Music groups from other continents have gained audiences in the United States, with some becoming instant success stories through YouTube.
Engaging Sociology
1 Identify four innovations that you feel are particularly significant. What are some ways in which they have impacted your life?
2 Identify three
