How Society Works: A Few Critical Elements Summarized

Why do people do what they do? What really explains our behavior? Are those talkshow hosts and columnists really making sense?

The media, not to mention daily conversations, are filled with overly simple explanations of social behavior. Prominent examples include the "follow the money" explanation of why politicians and corporate executives do what they do. Another class of explanations explains everything in terms of reproductive urges. Everything is really about sex. Sex, reproductive urges, and money do explain some of human behavior. Most any economist, psychologist, or sociologist will say that sex and money are not complete and comprehensive explantions of human behavior.

Mass Media Influence - Television, newspapers, radio, magazines, and the World Wide Web condition our perceptions of ourselves and of what's good/bad/problematic in the world. Television and magazines are especially powerful influences on our images of beauty, success, and fitness. This aspect of the media has been so heavily, and accurately, covered by others that there is little point addressing the subject here.

Peer Pressure - People encourage us to do things, or at least plant ideas in our heads

Psychological Drives and Impulses - Emotions, errors in perception or reasoning, and drives for such things as group affiliation, safetly, reproduction, and affection exert strong influences on our behavior.
Free will is clearly constrained by individual psychological makeup and culture.

Biology and Genetics - Biology and genetics are sometimes used interchangeabley, but they are not interchangeable concepts. Genetics refers to inherited traits and the biological material that transmits those characteroistics. Biology encompasses many, many processes that occur in the human body. Biological processes and genetic traits are obviously linked to many physical and mental characteristics. Our phyiscal and mental characteristics certainly influence our lives in many ways. No geneticist would ever defend the general position that anyone with trait X will do Y.

Socialization - This is the process of learning about language, good bahevior, bad behavior, "proper" goals and aspirations, and other cultural information that we need to get along in society. Socialization does not proceed in the same way for people of a particular race, religion, ethnic background, or social class. All of this things influence what we learn.

Much socialization, arguably the most important part, occurs before age18. For a person to make a major change in how they were socialized ("brought up" in popular language) is difficult. The desire for change or the ability to succeed could well be influenced by the same socialization that's now causing a problem.

Family, peer groups, schools, churches, and the mass media are all agents of socialization. We learn about God and morality from church and family and friends. We learn the knowledge and skills deemed important for the individual, with much of the learning taking place in school. The content of the messages we encounter is largely beyond our control as children. Even as adults we can only exercise limited control of our own socialization. Rising

Standards and Expectations - I'm thinking of the rising standards that people feel they must live up to. People think that they need to do much more than their parents did. Parents need an intercom system for the baby, a minivan, a yard for the kids, and a college savings plan. This thinking is healthy for those who sell intercom systems, minivans, and suburban real estate. Parents and the natural environment suffer over things that are not necessary for proper child development, or good for the environment.

The standards for being a a success seem to keep going up and up: "He's 40 but can't afford to live in DuPont Circle (or substitute any expensive neighborhood) and drive an Acura. What a loser!" The standards for being a good provider go up with the proliferation of new, pricey products and services that can supposedly turn parents into good parents.

It should now be clear that social behavior is more than just a matter of biology or genetics or money. There is much more involved than people simply deciding to do this or stop doing that. Social forces that are hard for us to understand combine with psychology, genetics, and biology to influence us. By extension, our schools, churches, families, and governments are all influenced by various social and psychological forces.

Electronic Documents

It can be argued that the advent of the computer age and electronic documents is second in importance only to Johann Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in the 1450s. Once computers were firmly entrenched in the world's offices in the early 1980s, it didn't take long for business people to start wondering whether electronic documents could become the primary means of communication. Futurists were quick to dream about the day when books would be presented strictly online as electronic documents, available to all and at much lower prices. Others saw electronic documents putting paper companies and many printers out of business.

While the reality of the electronic document revolution has panned out differently than the futurists predicted, the computer has brought extraordinary changes to communication. For example, the broad acceptance of electronic documents in everyday and business life has prompted the development of style guides and resources for citing electronic documents as references. Another sign of the impact of electronic documents is the arrival of the CIA's electronic reading room which citizens can visit online to read about items of national interest. Likewise, physicians are more and more frequently getting away from thick patient files and instead relying on electronic charts. This move to electronic documents reduces the chances of losing vital information and also dramatically cuts down the chance of prescription errors.

One challenge with electronic documents that has emerged in recent years is the discovery of the difference in pixels in an online document vs. a printed document. Companies like Microsoft are exploring ways to alter the pixel density of electronic documents to make them more eye friendly. As this science unfolds, society will be positioned to take another step toward a more paperless society.

Today, electronic documents are increasingly becoming the norm for handling personal business. More and more people each year do their banking and bill paying via electronic documents. It saves time, effort and postage. Plus, many contend that it is actually more secure than mailing a check from your mailbox and risking it being stolen.

Government itself feels strong pressure to move toward a more paperless society. The 1998 Government Paperwork Elimination Act demanded that government agencies refrain from using paper to create, modify or store official records within just four short years. This act, in and of itself, forced the government to begin accepting electronic payments and signatures. The age of electronic documents achieved a new milestone!

Today what is classified as an electronic document has expanded to include a wide range of items such as emails, photographs, letters, depositions, x-rays, claims, medical records, video clips and even voice mail. Today, organizations use Document Management Systems to organize and manage these electronic documents. With the addition of each item, the move toward a paperless society again takes a step forward.

All this being said, most experts believe that we will never become a fully paperless society. There will always be those who want to print out a document and hold it in their hands. However, as people become more comfortable with the convenience of electronic commerce, finance and communication, more and more of our lives will be handled through electronic documents and our society will, as a result, become increasingly paperless.