At different times of their lives or different times of the year, people may live in two or more countries. Advances in transportation and communications give people the opportunity to affiliate with multiple countries as transnationals. Today people are able to form and live across national borders. Our social and cultural arrangements in an era of globalization are adapting and changing the way we think and act. These advancements in technology and communications alters what people perceive as close and far away (Back et al. People can travel across the globe within hours, but also connect with others by phone or the Internet within seconds. People are no longer restricted to spatial locales and are able to interact beyond time and space with those sharing common culture, language, or religion (Giddens 1990 Kottak and Kozaitis 2012). Our social relationships and interactions have become unconstrained by geography (Back et al.). These corporations increase the influence of global practices on people’s lives that sometimes result in economic and social consequences including closing factories in one country and moving to another where costs and regulations are lower.Īlong with people throughout the world becoming culturally similar, sociologists also recognize patterns of cultural heterogenization where aspects of our lives are becoming more complex and differentiated resulting from globalization. Transnational corporations or companies with locations throughout the world like McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and Nike dominate the global market with goods and services spreading and embedding their cultural artifacts on a global scale. Globalization has resulted in the worldwide spread of capitalism (Back et al. However, the cultural similarities we now share center on capitalist enterprises including fashion and fast food. Globalization lends itself to cultural homogenization that is the world becoming culturally similar (Back et al. Technology allows us to eliminate communication boundaries and interact with each other on a global scale. Globalization also influences our cultural identity and affinity groups. Figure \(\PageIndex\): Light London Adverts Piccadilly Circus. It is easier for people to recognize the big picture or macrosociological influences we have on each other, but sometimes harder to recognize the role individuals have on each other across the globe. Our hidden connections stem from the individuals who grow, produce, and transport the food people eat. A food production shortage in the United States effects the overall economic and physical well-being and livelihoods of people throughout the world in an obvious way. In this era, everyone’s life is connected to everyone else’s life in obvious and hidden ways (Albrow 1996).
However, globalization has the unintended consequences of connecting every person in the world to each other.
Globalization is typically associated to the creation of world-spanning free market and global reach of capitalist systems resulting from technological advances (Back, Bennett, Edles, Gibson, Inglis, Jacobs, and Woodward 2012).