It's the power of being social when you feel elevated and charming. Sometimes sadly low and down.Talking to somebody via a cell phone, chatting through social media, playing with friends.
It is all about being social think of the moments when you are eating breakfast, lunch, dinner, or supper with your family and friends.
Going out during weekends to a social gathering brought about by a sports or a music event. Everything seems to be in place orderly and organized, but the unpredictability of this life makes it uncertain. It is true to say that we are undergoing social changes.
We live in a universe of interlinked systems that involve things and elements of different kinds. The systems allow us to be social as individual animals and humans. Animals and other life species including humans are both social individuals and cosmopolitans. Being social involves communication. Communication in animals is the centerpiece of social interaction among individuals in the animal world.
Think of the group of insects you pass along the way. Again think about primates, apes, insects, birds, and many other species. They are social individuals too. They keep each other's company, share moments, build their homes, hunt, gather food and protect their social systems in unison and work together to make their life easier.
It is even fascinating seeing a herd of buffaloes in a strategic struggle against the strategic pride of hungry lions in an African jungle. And occasionally you may encounter a fight among lions or buffaloes may be for mating and territorial right. And also playing teaching to improve each other's skills in case they encounter a hard moment. When their lives are in danger they need to survive.
Therefore they are forced to hunt for food or defend themselves. That is all about being social. Being there for each other in good times and bad times.
Those are pictures of how social systems bond and unite individuals into a whole entity of systems. Not only does this apply to animals, apes, and primates like chimps, monkeys, gorillas, and humans but the entire systems that life depends upon on the planet Earth and our mother nature. Also as it's to the animal world, in the human world, complex systems are built. They are interdependent on one another.
The evolution of communication in terms of language, and technological innovations led to the rise of social media and the information age. This causes great changes in our social systems. Study shows that our behavior is changing fueled by personal grief, panic, and anxiety.
That's to say we are at a huge risk of developing psychological disorders more than at any time in human history. This shapes the way we behave as social individuals changing our daily life.
On top of that, health crises affect our health systems due to outbreaks of global and regional pandemics. People suffer from mental and physical health. Pandemics attack our core social systems and cripple our health systems. Putting in danger health workers and the majority who desperately need health services as well as those who serve our societies daily.
It is the time when the core customs, values, and morals of humans as social individuals are tried. This also introduces new manners and ways of behaving as our societies evolve to their renewal. Normal ways of behaving in a social context become life-threatening. For example, a study shows that handshaking is the natural habit of humans and our close relatives bonobos, chimps, and gorillas.
The habits allow us to share emotions, show sympathy, and, strengthen the social bond among family members of a particular species of great apes. The habit has been discouraged following the Covid-19 pandemic which has claimed the lives of many people and changed the lives of millions of people globally.
Fewer gatherings and limited traveling have also affected the habits of many people around the globe. However, the good news is that the covid 19 vaccine normalizes the situation. People can gather and handshake after being fully vaccinated.
In addition sound, visual and chemical communication (pheromones) dominate in the living species enhancing social ties. In the human world, it's an evolution to an even more complex way of communication through language and technology.
As it applies to the social world in the discussion on the global key issues and agendas. It's very important for the survival of social individuals be it, humans, our distant relative's apes, weaver birds as well as insects, and many more. Even though we do not share the same way of communication, numbers and natural laws that govern the universe keep us in touch and communication constantly. Since we originate from the same core of existence which is life, evolution, and survival.
Economic crises do affect the majority of people when systems that largely depend upon economies leave societies and individuals taking a staggering pace. This not only tests our sense of nature as a social being but also creates fear and anxiety.
Thinking about how our future becomes uncertain. How can we put food on the table in the difficult times when we become jobless? How can we afford to give education to our young ones when we are broke? etc. This in turn puts the entire wheel of human civilization to its exhaustion. Trying to face the future we become vigilant in working to improve our economies individually and socially. Ready to overcome any likely challenge in the future.
In addition, security crises due to war conflicts, natural calamities, famine, and terrorism do affect the social systems. Forcing them to shrink or shut down. This changes how people behave, creating a vacuuming desire for order, peace, and normalcy. Sobbing in the name of justice and rights becomes a daily devotional demand to end all the miserable misfortunes brought about by hatred, injustice, cruelty, disunity, irresponsibility, and hypocrisy.
Wishing for an orderly, cohesive, and harmonious society in which its systems work socially and function shoulder to shoulder. This in turn brings in a new sense of humanity, dignity, respect, mutual understanding, and belongingness as we exist individually, as a society, or as the world.
Moreover, humans unlike other life species are both intelligent, social, and political individuals. These aspects make us even more complex and delicate individuals as we live to fit into the social systems. Unlike our social counterparts, social models in insects like termites, ants, and bees are not changing so much.
While humans have undergone multiple social transformations for many ages.From primitively living depending on nature to manipulating and controlling nature to our favor.Going through various economic and social relations. From foraging, feudalism, slavery, capitalism, and socialism to globalization and the information age. Also, from kinship, lordship, and monarch systems to republic and democratic systems of politics and governance in the twentieth century to date.
Doctrines bring a modern social order by engaging women and men in balance shaping the mythical claim of a superior clan, tribe, gender, race, and so on. A harmonious idea of the power of our inner and outer ways to soulful freedom from contradictory traditions, ethics, morality, and customs. Normalizing the tensions that existed for ages that tear apart our systems and bring inclusivity and respect across all cultures and ethnicities.
However, the global social systems are likely to grapple with the scars of covid-19 for many years to come and trying to make amendments comes with rewards. Taking on the time gap, rise in the unemployment rate, education inequalities, and needs.
Teaching and learning using other means like online classes as well as social distancing. Reflecting on what has happened to us, balancing different aspects and fairly addressing health care nationalism, and repairing the global economy. Looking to the future with preparedness, training, flexible working, and taking action.
Lastly, as human civilization advances, pushes the entire life species to undergo some changes. From behavior, physical to mental development and quality which affect our environment and the entire world's ecosystems.
Also changing the way these species behave as social individuals. On the other hand, a constant social evolution happens to change the way we communicate and share important moments of life as friends and family. It's a change in culture worldwide.
The decline in social communication has impacted millions of people globally, forcing individuals to adapt to new values, ethics, and customs that suit the demands of the current era, experience, and situations. It's an advent of new uncertainties trying to build more complex and perfect societies at the expense of the current situation.
References
Form, W. and Wilterdink, . Nico (2023, October 15). social change. Encyclopedia Britannica.
Swedell, L. (2012) Primate Sociality and Social Systems. Nature Education Knowledge 3(10):84
Ventriglio, A., Castaldelli-Maia, J. M., Torales, J., Chumakov, E. M., & Bhugra, D. (2021). Personal and social changes in the time of COVID-19. Irish journal of psychological medicine, 38(4), 315–317. https://doi.org/10.1017/ipm.2021.23
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