What is Sociology?

According to the Internet's definition, sociology is “a study of society, patterns of social relationships, social interaction and culture of yesterday life”.

But in order to understand better the meaning of “sociology”, we would better have to come back at the outset.

The term sociology has been invented by a French philosopher, Auguste Comte in 1830. Comte is a French philosopher famous for his concept of “la loi des trois états” (law of three stages). It states that society as a whole, and each particular science, develops through three mentally conceived stages:

• The theological stage

• The metaphysical stage

• The positive stage.

He inspired a lot of philosophers such as Durkheim, Alain, Proudhon and many more.

Sociology is a field of social sciences. Before the 21th century, sociological theories were made thanks to observation of people, to media reports, “street” observations and surveys. We can say that the birth of sociology coincides with the emergence of revolutions such as the political destabilization of the society (the end of the monarchy and the emergence of the middle class).

But time passed and technology evolved a lot. Since the beginning of the 21th century, internet and social media grown up fast. It is an interesting subject that we can study because social media has a huge impact on society. As you might know, social media is a way to share our personality by posting pictures, videos or texts. We can express our opinion and discuss about the news.

We also learnt from experiments that we can easily be influenced by social network. Nowadays, more and more people know that we have to be careful of what we share to our entourage. There are a lot of fake news, so we have to be sure of what we share.

Plus, we have to analyze every information we see on the social network because we can be influenced by others and it can have a huge impact. To illustrate this statement, we can take the example of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. If you want to learn more about it, a well-done documentary is available on Netflix.

Scientists have been studying the impact of sociology on social networks.

How can social media influence sociology?

First of all, you shouldn’t confuse sociology with sociability.

We can observe that our relations are not the same in the virtual world than in reality. Our laptops create a border between us and our “friends” on social networks. It gives us the opportunity to be less shy and to share more content about us. But it also allows people to hide behind a username and a screen, and to insult others. We call these people “haters”.

Although having bad sides, sociologists observed that social network can also be useful for people who are facing difficult situations. It allows them to gain support and confidence from a lot of people. They are creating "support" groups in order to help each other face their everyday life. For instance if they have a handicap.

These groups also help people to speak out about their problems because they realize that they are not the only ones to be disabled, to have cancer or to be bullied.

We can take the example of Quaden Bayles, an Australian boy who was bullied at school because of his dwarfism. His mom posted a video of him saying “give me a knife, I am going to kill myself”. This video became viral and raised awareness to people around the world reminding them that bullying has a real impact on people. Quaden and his family have been receiving a lot of supportive messages. This act also helped other people to share their experience too.

Social networks are also helpful for charities. Thanks to a Facebook page or an Instagram profile, they can gain new members and supporters.

Social networks are a good way to reach out people at heart, and influence the behavior of our easily mean society...

By Camille Gaulthier