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This week I am still reading and studying the basic concepts of sociology and the essential element in the society.

Work

According to the author, work can be considered as ‘the carrying out of tasks which enable people to make a living within the environment in which they find themselves’. In the real world, human beings are different from any other animal as they can work to deal with the problems arising from the scarcity of resources in the environment. Therefore, it can be seen clearly work gives the identity to human beings and it is one of the essential elements for people to form society.  However, the notion of ‘making a living’ does not only show that the aim of working is to produce the material products to guarantee the physical survival. In fact, the ‘making a living’ is mentioning both the material and the cultural aspects of people’s existence.

Let us move on to the virtual society, Web. As the book mentioned above, work is an essential element to tell human beings from any other animal and form the human society. Then, how about the virtual society? Is work still important for people to live in the virtual world? The answer is absolutely yes. Although in the environment, physical survival is no longer a problem for people. But they still need to work in the social networking to be bound up with their conception of self. In this manner, work has the same meaning for people to live either in the real society or in the virtual society. For my issue, user-generated content in the social networking is a kind of work for people in some extent. People write the blog or twitter as a way in which they can be self-identified. Therefore, there easily will be a motivation for people ongoing to do such job online.

It is another important aspect for the aim of work. In this book, Culture is ‘The system of meanings which are shared by members of a human grouping and which define what is good and bad, right and wrong and what are the appropriate ways for members of that grouping to think and behave.‘  There is no difference in culture between online society and real society. People in the world are seeking to deal with the same issue about the problems of human existence wherever it happened in virtual world or real. There are still the same existential problems in both societies: the meanings of death; the nature of obligation; the character of love. Good thing is that in the virtual society, people can be provided an extensive environment to express and discuss.  Moreover, it is a nice place to engage people.

This week I have studied an important element within society that is work. The meaning of work for people is given and connected with the virtual society, finding out the common things.

The book is Sociology work and industry by Tony J.Watson