According to C. Wright Mills. Sociological imagination is the ability to think about ourselves away from the norms or daily routines we follow and to look at them from a new perspective. (Mills. 2015) The sociological imagination allows us to avoid the robotic lifestyle we may have followed. If we haven't realized it yet, we are following a monotonous routine without questioning it. I use the cell phone example to explain the sociological imagination. Cell phones were created simply for communication. It allowed people to communicate regardless of the distance between them. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay However, cell phones have evolved at twice the speed of humans. Cell phones are currently capable of performing calculations, conversions and translations. Cell phones allow people to have access to any information at their fingertips. Man has become heavily dependent on the cell phone for the various additional functions it can perform instead of using it for the main reason it was designed. This has led to identity theft, people's identities created on social networking sites have been hacked. My personal experience was when a friend of mine attempted to hack my personal student account which contained confidential information regarding my address, financial status, current semester and previous semester grades etc. The system saves a password which is the individual's date of birth, this is not a secure method as people access this via social networking sites. Mobile phones helped me set up an email address to receive correspondence from the university I applied to study at, it helped me receive my matric results before they were released to me at high school. I received a message from the university telling me that I have been accepted to study the desired course I had applied for. I was able to access my bank account via my cell phone. It helped me access last year's papers to study for my final high school exam. Cell phone was a disadvantage, when my cell number was passed to strangers and I received calls from strangers offering me a loan. Messages informing that I won a large sum of money to get it, I am required to give them confidential information regarding my passwords which will allow them to access my bank account. It helped me capture long-term memories through images and videos. It helped me build my network… In school, my teachers told us that cell phones are a distraction. To some extent it was. Cell phones allow access to social networks, which can help start and grow businesses, as well as close them. It helps start and grow a business through advertising, however it promotes negative publicity by allowing people to comment and the opinions are not always positive. If information about the financial position of the company is disclosed or events of a strike are revealed, foreign internationals are informed about it due to social networks and withdraw from investments in such a company. The level of addiction to cell phones can be traced back to obesity, as children do not play sports but prefer to play with cell phones. Cell phones have forced people to shy away from face-to-face conversations, rely on text messages and social networking sites to communicate, people hide behind the "emoji" character used in electronic messaging. People depend on their phones.
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