Covid-19 [un]productivity: exploring ideas of motivation through micro and macro social theory

You will have seen posts on social media surrounding productivity during this pandemic. Some will be encouraging you to be productive and others will be telling you not to listen to the encouragers. It was when I first heard somebody talk about motivation during Covid-19 on YouTube, that I was inspired to explore this idea. They said something along the lines of:

“you need to do something because you want to do it at the time but also you need to think about your future and how what you do now will meet your goals”

At the moment, I am re-reading Mouzelis’ (2008) Modern and Postmodern Social Theorising: Bridging the Divide. In the first chapter, the author discusses social theories and how they criticise each other. So, when I heard the above quote I started thinking about how micro and macro social theories can relate to this idea of motivation.

Macro sociology

Macro social theory studies the collective phenomena within society: class struggles, impacts of institutions such as the Church, media and the family. The classic theories of Functionalism and Marxism are examples of this macro sociology. To these, the social world exists as structures and institutions which shape our lives and how we act.

“…but also you need to think about your future and how what you do now will meet your goals”

The second aspect of the quotation above states that motivation should come from thinking about your future and how it will help meet your goals. This could be interpreted as referring to institutions of work and even the family and what they require in order to successfully participate within these. For instance, completing CPD now in order to yield the required experience for a job promotion and be able to afford a big family house.

Macro social theory has been criticised for its emphasis on structure informing the roles of individuals. Macro social theory, on its own, does not account for free will and portrays individuals as passive products of these overarching structures.

Micro sociology

Micro social theories developed in the 1960s and 1970s and include symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology. These social theories see individuals (labelled as actors) as the producers of social life, rather than passive products of structure.  To these, the social world exists because actors are constantly reproducing and transcending practices.

“you need to do something because you want to do it…”

The first part of motivation, contained within this quote, is that you should want to do something because of the mere act of doing. This directly relates to micro sociology as the act itself is the motivation and is contained outside of any previous engagement with the ‘something’ that is being done. The focus is upon the practice in the present.

Micro social theory, of course, has also been critiqued. Whilst, it does account for what micro social theory lacks, it overstates agents. Micro social theorists refuse to combine their ‘social’ focus on action with ‘system’ perspectives which take structure and institutions into consideration. By doing this, micro social theory produces trivial and obvious conclusions on action.

Indeed, if we took only the first part of this quote into consideration, of course motivation involves wanting to do something. What would be the point in life if we did not enjoy doing the act we are doing? However, once we factor in societal experiences of poverty, racism, sexism and requirements of specific institutions: our motivations may not always be driven by ‘what we enjoy at the present’; otherwise, we would not get anything done, some acts, whilst enjoyable, can be at some points, tiring and even boring (my experience of referencing whilst at university: I enjoyed university but I had to reference in order to get my degree!)

Overall, the quote perfectly sums up the need for both social theories. How these theories are aligned is another subject, one which I look forward to re-reading about in the coming chapters of Mouzelis’ (2008) Modern and Postmodern Social Theorising: Bridging the Divide.

Storms, snow and rescue cats: the sociological experience of losing power

I started writing this when I was at my parents last year and we suffered from a loss of power due to a storm. However, following storm Ciara, Dennis and Jorge, I returned to this piece of writing to reflect on how sociology can explain my experiences with the weather (and my parents’ cat).

It is cold. You cannot see the outside world because the rain is coming down so heavily. It is all a blur. “Oh no, there’s no satellite signal again!” my dad shouts in rage. Although it has now been determined that the culprit is our newly rescued cat who is pulling the cable out of the sky box. But it feels like one of those rare days of power loss or heavy snow fall: when you cannot watch television, use the internet and/or are essentially stuck in your house due to the weather. Although there is that classic panic, which has generated multiple memes, of have we got enough milk and bread?! I do find the feelings very satisfying.

One of the very first theorists you learn about in Sociology is Durkheim. One of his concepts which has always stuck with me is that of anomie and the resulting normlessness. As you may be aware, anomie is a feeling an individual, social group or society experiences when their normal behaviour, values and/or standards breakdown. For example, during the stormy weather, I cannot access the internet and watch/stream programmes or films. Due to my lack of hobbies, this is predominantly what I do in my free time when I am at home and, as such, I experience anomie.

Sociologists such as Durkheim and Merton frame anomie as a negative experience within their writing. However, I feel that it is more complex than this and includes a whole spectrum of positive, negative, and mixed emotions.

The negative emotions

Of course, storms, snow, newly rescued cats etc. can make you anxious, a known negative emotion: will our fence get blown over? Will a trampoline blow into my car and cause damage like I’ve seen happen on social media? Will my newly rescued cat get into my ham sandwich again and leave me without lunch for work? Will I be able to get to work tomorrow in my normal time or will my route be flooded and cause traffic? This weather [and cat] produces fear of the unknown and could be seen as a fear of future anomie.

The mixed emotions

Loss of power can feel both liberating and frustrating. For example, during a power outage I decided I would bake because it is a hobby I really enjoy but do not do often. However, I soon remembered that I could not Google the ratio of flour to butter nor could I even put my baking in the oven because, of course, the power was out.

The positive emotions

Before I discuss the positive emotions, I experience, I want to recognise that I am speaking from a position of privilege. Although the weather we endure in the UK can cause travel delays, destruction of homes and businesses, I am fortunate that my home has not been flooded, my belongings have not been destroyed and my car has not been hit by flying objects. Geographically speaking, I am also extremely lucky that the UK does not suffer from monsoons, hurricanes, tornados and other life-threatening weather. The positive emotions I feel during our storms are those of comfort due to the fact I have not faced life altering events due to the weather.

The positive emotions I feel during a storm are nostalgic for a time in which I have never even lived within. During a power outage, my mum would often say “this is what it was like in the olden days” whilst she lit candles and would tell me about how, before she was even born, one man was responsible for lighting oil lights in the streets. Many sociologists have discussed the sociology of nostalgia. Indeed, Davis’s 1979 book Yearning for Yesterday discusses how anxiety driven situations can invoke a desire for the past, the simpler times. However, what is interesting about a power outage is that the “old times of candles for light” is my current reality. What makes this emotion a positive one is that I know this power outage will pass at some point.

Since these storms, I’ve been thinking about power relations and nostalgia, something I want to write about in the future.

The Social Class Series: Karl Marx

Social class is a central concept within the study of Sociology. It is one of the first forms of inequality one reads about when taking an introductory course in the subject. This series will look at different conceptualisations of social class given by the most popular social theorists writing on the subject. This first post explains and discusses the work of Karl Marx.

Karl Marx was interested in historical materialism: how the economic base of society shapes the classed living conditions of social groups throughout history. These historical societal structures are referred to as modes of production. For example, feudalism and the lived conditions of nobility and peasantry as well as the capitalist and the consumer within capitalism. Marx wrote about how an individual’s relation to the modes of production affects their living conditions. In particular, within the Communist Manifesto, Marx discusses two classes that are in direct opposition to each other: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

The bourgeoisie are the middle/upper class, those who own the means of production (e.g. factory owners). The proletariat are the working class, those who have to sell their labour to survive within society (e.g. the factory workers). Within these classes there are sub-classes. Within the bourgeoisie there is the haute (upper), moyenne (middle) and petite (petty) bourgeoisie. Within the proletariat Marx distinguishes between the proletariat as workers with a salary and the lumpenproletariat, those who can be described as residing within the underclass and the poorest within society e.g. vagabonds and sex workers.

As one can see, Marx’s conceptualisation of class is dependent upon one’s financial position as he emphasizes the economic base of society, that is resources and production which creates societal goods for exchange, as shaping one’s social class and their experience within the superstructure. The superstructure refers to societal institutions such as the family, politics, culture, religion and education. Due to the emphasis on the economic base, Marx does not credit other factors which could conceptualise one’s class. Similarly, it is difficult to ascertain how relatable the theory is to society now since the industrial revolution in which Marx was writing. Of course, it is possible to apply his account to our capitalist mode of production but what about other aspects of society. Would we still categorise sex workers as part of the underclass when so many students are engaging in this work to pay for their way through university?

#doitforthegram: social media and consumption

Last night I watched Snatched, a comedy starring Amy Schumer who plays Emily who is a “self-obsessed 30 something year old”. Throughout the film, Emily is going through negative life experiences, such as a breakup, but this does not affect her ability to pose in selfies as if she is “leading her best life”. In fact, even in one selfie, she employs a ring light, something which was once confined to professional photographers and gradually filtered down to YouTube and social media influencers and then to generic selfie takers in the form of smartphone attachments. Throughout the movie she engages in two conversations with two characters who question her use of social media. The first is James who is wining and dining Emily in order to trap her into being kidnapped by a South American gang. James is talking about all the places he has been around the world which impresses Emily; Emily replies with something along the lines of “wow, your Instagram must be amazing” to which James replies, “I’m not on anything like that”. It could be seen that the writers’ juxtaposition of Emily and James worked in a way to highlight Emily’s social media consumption which could be seen as a microcosm for today’s social media users. The second conversation is with her mother: Emily states that she has to show people “how much of a good time she is having” so that people can compliment her on her life in the comments section. Emily’s mum says that she needs to just live her life.

Watching this film, for me, has come at a time where I am more sceptical about my consumption of social media. Especially during this sun and heat that England is currently experiencing in which more of my Instagram feed is people I follow swimming in Spanish looking [yet English] seas, swimming pools, beer garden drinks and bikini selfies. It’s not that I feel jealous looking at these, it’s that I feel I should also be posting about how great my life is in the sun. There are sociological discussions surrounding individuals on social media being both consumers and producers of media. I can see this in my thoughts, through consuming other posts, I want to produce similar posts to show how great my life is. Snatched shows how the pressure to show one’s best life on social media even during something as life threatening as being kidnapped in South America.  Indeed, there has been transparency surrounding this on Instagram with the hashtag #doitforthegram being used over the past few years. Posters transparently detail that what they posted was not candid but, rather, to show their Instagram feed within a certain light. Often, these are referred to as #plandids. I recently took a month-long break from social media to decide how I would deal with this pressure, but as of yet, I am still unsure.

Coventry as the City of Culture: experiences of place at university

A big part of going to university during my undergraduate degree was the sense of belonging to a place. To me, the socially correct thing to do was to live in student halls for the first year and then move in with newfound university friends during the second and third year. Therefore, studying and living in York were intertwined: my degree reminded me of the city and the city reminded me of my degree. I became involved in local politics, knowing what local constituencies were likely to vote for particular parties; I knew local attractions and no longer felt like a tourist but rather a citizen. Since graduating and moving away from the city, whenever someone mentions the place I get a sense of pride in telling anyone who will listen that I lived there and a sense of protectiveness over their views of the city.

However, this was not the same experience of my subsequent times at university. During my PGCE I studied from a distance, completing full time teaching responsibilities whilst going to university 5 days out of the year. I lived an hour away from the city the university is located within and rarely visited it. Despite studying there, I feel no affiliations to the city. Indeed, my graduation in this city felt different to my undergraduate, my family and I did not “need” to visit a particular spot in the city which I had spent a lot of my time. I did not feel an emotional connection when we passed the university library, in fact, I had never set foot in there. It wasn’t the same pride ridden day as my undergraduate graduation.

I started thinking about university and place about a month ago. As a current student at the University of Warwick, again through distance learning, when logging onto the website I noticed that Warwick were advertising the triumph of Coventry winning the title of City of Culture. At this point I even forgot that the University of Warwick is located in Coventry and not, in fact, Warwick! I am guessing, as I have nobody to ask, that those students who live and study at the University of Warwick may be happy and proud that their city has been given this prestigious title. However, although I study at Warwick, I am far from thrilled. As a full-time teacher in Stoke-on-Trent, another candidate for the City of Culture title, I feel much more attached to Stoke. Having lived in the city for two years now, my sense of belonging is around the same as the city I studied in during my undergraduate studies. As such, when I saw this advert on the Warwick website I felt conflicted, on one hand I felt I should have joined the University of Warwick in celebrating the success of the city in which it is located, but on the other hand, I had no ties to this city and my current residing city had lost the title to Coventry. I have written before about place and the emotional connections one feels, indeed this has involved places one has not even visited. In my experience of university and place, living in the host city conjures up a different sense of belonging to the university. What is your experience of living [or not living] within the city you studied within? Has it changed your perceptions?   

Training teachers with 'pop Science': are humans as simplistic as Science suggests?

I have written before about the pedagogy attached to training sessions for teachers (see link here). My thoughts have been brought back to this topic after a recent training session in attachment theory. In particular, the use of popular science when training teachers.

Since I started teaching I have been involved in numerous training programmes, which upon reflection, has incorporated scientific findings about the brain to training sessions. The most recurring example is the synaptic connections within the brain which strengthen knowledge through practice. Similarly, I have become familiar with the amygdala, which according to session facilitators is actively involved with the flight, fight or freeze reactions that humans find themselves within when their “chimp” is out.

Sociology of scientific knowledge has been concerned with researching the effect of scientific knowledge upon social life and this is an example of this. During these training sessions I have often been skeptic of the use of scientific understanding of these social characteristics, which has led me to reflect, why? I think it may be due to my social science training. During A-level Sociology, I learned about the sociology of science and read works by Kuhn, Popper and Potter. Is it really true that social conduct is all down to functions within the brain? Perhaps my skepticism is a weakness and my lack of scientific knowledge is causing me to be ignorant but from my point of view this type of “popular science” is too simplistic and reduces humans to cause and effect models. 

"Just some steps and overpriced bakeries": Pop culture tourism in New York

When I went to an American college during University, I travelled with 20 other York students who were strangers. We started off in New York, with two days of sight seeing. Although I did not know some of these people I found common bonds through travelling to ‘must see’ New York spots that were pertinent to some American sitcoms. For instance, I bonded with a girl who, at first, I thought I had nothing in common with through sitting on the Met steps as Serena and Blair do in Gossip Girl, an American sitcom based around the lives of ‘upper-east side’ teenage socialites. Similarly, when travelling in our stranger group, the first thing we did in central park was try to find “the Friend’s fountain”, ironically, as another girl called it. We paused to take iconic jumping photos at the fountain even though we had yet to remember each other’s names. All through this time we bonded and forged conversations based around episodes we had seen, who our favourite characters were and how strange it was to be where it was all set.

As I am about to embark on my second trip to New York, with my partner, we have revolved our entire stay around where we will be going for food. Even booking the hotel involved taking into consideration the distance between this and a bakery we wished to visit. We will often watch a series called Cake Boss which is a realty programme revolving around life at a family owned Italian-American bakery. We have already planned what bakery items we will be getting despite never having visited the bakery before. Technology is, indeed, making the world feel smaller. Businesses can be found on Google maps, menus can be seen anywhere in the world, and transportation plans can be made months in advance. All this for a bakery. Food tourism in New York is not unusual, the popularity of Sex and the City, again based in New York, lead to tours to the iconic bakery. The levels of tourism and popularity have led to second bakeries being opened around the city to capitalise on their popularity. If you are not a fan of any of these programmes then you may see just some steps to a museum or a couple of over priced bakeries but to the fan these are the places they have travelled thousands of miles to see.

The New York experience does not finish once the trip has ended. The trip changes the perception of the television show. Whenever these are watched the viewer can reflect back on their trip to that iconic place and reminisce. Perhaps the location did not look the way they thought it would, maybe the visit was disappointing, or maybe the visit forged friendships between strangers. Either way the relationship between the New York locations and the viewer has changed.

“Enhancing your natural beauty”: my type of capitalist marketing

Adverts are ubiquitous. When I was growing up, the only time I would see adverts was while watching television. However, with the rise of digital technology, adverts have found themselves penetrating everyone’s life: whether you are watching a YouTube video or scrolling social media, you can even get adverts on the front of your smartphone’s lock screen dependent on push notifications of some apps. The one thing I have noticed whilst being forced to watch adverts is the rise of negative, preventative marketing of consumer products. What I mean by this is the rise of products marketed as “anti” insert an adjective here: “anti-frizz”, “anti-blackhead”, “anti-humidity”, “anti-spot”. This type of marketing perpetuates the idea that we must cover our “imperfections”, imperfections that are created and defined by these companies. Who decided that having frizzy hair, spots or blackheads was not ideal? Is there a health benefit to not having these? As far as I am aware, the only reason products aim to irradiate these characteristics is to profit from cosmetic ideals. This type of marketing is what causes self-esteem and insecurities amongst young women.

Of course, it can be said that any type of marketing involves selling a product to fulfil capitalist created material needs; but I have to say, I am a contradictory fan of capitalism and its many products. There is no way to eradicate these products, in a similar critique to that of work by Karl Marx: overthrowing capitalism is next to impossible. Therefore, my ideal beauty product marketing is selling the purpose of products as “enhancing the natural”. These products minimise the guilt I feel about indulging with capitalism and makes me feel like the product I have bought does not define my beauty: I am already beautiful, the product is just adding to this.  With or without this product my features are valid. I believe taking this marketing approach is beneficial to both companies and the consumer. The consumer will feel good about themselves, which in turn, may increase the chances of repurchasing this item. I have found that responding to this type of marketing is what has allowed me to no longer feel insecure about not wearing makeup. 10 years ago, I never would have considered going “bare-face” at work or at social events, but now it is my norm. Of course, this could also be due to my self-concept as I have aged, but I do think that positive marketing has had an impact.

Altogether, as we cannot stop the inevitability of capitalism, I believe that if companies are going to heavily market consumer products, it should be done in this positive, uplifting manner.  

Makeovers in film: The scientific superman and the prom queen

Make over films are my favourite type of film to watch when I am feeling like I need to organise my life. When at university, I would always leave my referencing until after I had finished the essay: usually the day before the hand in date. My favourite thing to do, whilst mindlessly Harvard referencing, was to watch Legally Blonde. However, only now do I realise the subliminal influence referencing had over me, watching a film set at the very institution whose referencing I was following: Harvard University. At the end of every essay I always felt like I was physically at my lowest, although intellectually at my highest. My hair was greasy, body hair overgrown, and my health was not at its best having eaten copious amounts of sharing bags of chocolate and crisps. I always felt a need that after I had finished my essays, now was the time to ‘pick myself up’ and makeover my body. Although legally blonde provided me with the girl power motivation to finish my essays and have an intellectual makeover, growing up with these types of films, I am partial to a physical makeover film.

Makeover films provide me with such inspiration and motivation to ‘sort’ my body out. However, just as Legally Blonde invokes making over my mind, it could be argued other ‘makeover’ films are more than skin deep. On the surface, She’s All That, a film in which a popular ‘Jock’ has a bet with his friend that he can make turn the ‘dorky art’ girl into the teen film beloved Prom Queen, appears to simply show the changing physical appearance of the ‘geeky’ protagonist. However, if one adopts a sociological view point, it could be argued that the subsequent ‘makeover’ of the Jock results in his openness and tolerance to go beyond the feminine beauty ideals when forming friendships.

When reflecting upon these films, it occurred to me that all films of this genre involve the smart female protagonist changing into the intelligent attractive ideal of a woman that emerged from the 1990s into the millennium. A quick Google search of male makeover films returns movies in which the male protagonist evolves into a super-human character: the Nutty Professor, Superman, Spiderman, Ironman etc. Often these makeovers are not a result of the protagonist actively changing their physical appearance for social acceptance, but rather the active result of science; the radioactive substance which turns the average man into these superheroes. Indeed, this is sociologically interesting. Men in these circumstances are given no choice with these makeovers, it is not society which decides their makeover but rather an accidental mutation generated by their contact with science (again, a male dominated field). If it was not for these mutations, the men would go about their day and would not be involved with this ‘makeover’.

Once again, a sociological look at some of my favourite viewing material has resulted in looking at my reality in a different, albeit, fractured way. Watching Clueless will never be the same again.

'Pay to Play' society and fashion: not just a neoliberal concept

Theorists claim that neoliberal society, in which individuals feel an increased responsibility for themselves, has paved way for ‘pay to play’ society. This concept refers to the idea that within society we now need to spend money in order to participate within society’s conventions. For example, the expansion of the housing rental market has resulted in individuals paying for temporary shelter as long as they can afford the rent prices; ownership is temporary. I first read about this concept a couple of years ago and I was reminded about it earlier today when playing music through YouTube. I usually listen to music through logging into either my sister’s or partner’s premium membership with Spotify. However, I began to think that YouTube provided a reliable, free, source of music if for some reason I could access Spotify either through forgetting passwords or through these being cancelled. This prompted me to think about my search for stability within a subscription filled music business. With the rise of Spotify brought services such as Apple music and MTV music, the same pay for a month of ad free and downloadable music. For some reason I did not get a sense of permanency with these pay to listen services. I was searching for stability within neoliberal pay to play society.  After reflecting upon this, I started to think about other areas of my life which involved regular upkeep; the ideology behind the ‘pay to play’ concept. I looked to my own personal list, on Google Keep, of what I needed to do: get my eyebrows shaped and tinted, dye my hair, self-tan and get my nails done. Indeed, with each one of these tasks, the result is temporary: hair grows, tan fades and nails chip. Each one of these tasks comes at a financial expense and the upkeep of my own beauty ideals comes at a cost. My body itself is engaged within pay to play society.

In a similar manner, recently I have been watching a lot of videos, mostly Buzz Feed - an entertainment website dedicated to trendy news and ‘life hacks’, about beauty and music trends in the last 100 years. These included: common eyebrow shapes, the ‘ideal’ figure of the decade and dance moves throughout the last century. Of course, comments on the videos disputed some depictions of fashion within certain decades. However, the point I wish to focus upon is it was interesting to see how pay to play society was a feature of the so-called ‘modern’ era of stable mortgages and the ‘golden age of the family’. As such, pay to play society is not a foundational concept of neoliberalism, but rather the foundation of fashion. Fashion has penetrated every type of society, as Simmel states, fashion is a social relationship between the individual and society at any given time. Therefore, it is important that concepts related within neoliberalism are not just confined to this type of society. Indeed, it may be true that sociological concepts, such as the pay to play society, are fluid in essence. Every version of society does not have a concrete set of sociological concepts that relate to it. Pay to play is not a new phenomenon; it is simply represented in a different way within current times.

Gender, Age and Technology in ABC’s Modern Family

I have just finished watching Modern Family Season 6 Episode 16 “Connection Lost”, throughout watching this I could not help but view certain scenes from a sociological perspective. This episode was a prime example of sociology in everyday life through the interplay of social characteristics such as gender and age with concepts of capitalism and new technology. It provoked me to flesh out these thoughts within the words below, no knowledge of Modern Family is required to follow my thoughts.

This 20 minute episode saw a side story which revolved around Claire, a mother to three teenagers and wife to a ‘Realtor’ (an American estate agent), and her perspective on a family issue. Although Claire was physically away from her family at an airport in Chicago, the medium of screen casting (digitally recording a computer screen) on her Apple laptop, the whole cast was seen throughout the episode. The plot developed through Facetiming, messaging on Facebook and searching Google. Indeed, this episode creatively shows how ubiquitous digital forms of communication has become, social media is the dominant form of communicating with others. The mere fact that an entire episode uses an Apple laptop to explore a storyline advocates this point. This was a clever idea from the writers, this difference provokes me as a viewer to watch more attentively and relate to the use of sponsored social media use, the only thing missing was the use of emojis.

Indeed, this did provoke a conversation between myself and my partner: we joked how much Apple, Facebook and Google must have paid for the sponsorship or what the writers got in return. There is no doubt about it that this advertisement worked, I bought into Claire’s life, I wanted her laptop, I wanted to use the websites she did, have the applications that she had open, and effortlessly socialise with my family whilst at an airport for who knows what reason. The fact that we do not know why Claire is actually at the airport adds to the craving of this glamorous ‘on the move’ life. Upon reflection, my desire for this does reflect Marx’s concept of commodity fetishism: the idea that physical objects that are bought and sold, such as a laptop, have characteristics that they do not hold outside of societal context. For instance, the Apple laptop for me, as a viewer of this episode, hold the power of effortlessly socialising which instigates my desire for the object. This is the foundation of capitalism, buying a ‘life’ through material possessions to achieve the capitalist desires that are advertised throughout media. Of course, I do not want to discredit Modern Family as a driving force of capitalism. Whilst I was under the mystical powers that this form of commodity fetishism encapsulates, my partner was critical and argued against the use of Apple in comparison to Android. Indeed, one could argue that the avocation of android is no different and this still involves capitalist values in some way but the mere fact that we both reacted in different ways to this promotions shows how this sociological concept should not be definitive.

This episode also struck me with how it related gender and age with technology. As technology was obviously at the forefront of this episode, we saw Jay, the 60 something year old father to Claire struggle with technology. He would often answer face time by putting the phone to his ear or accidentally calling Claire on Facetime when he thought he was taking a video. Such portrayals positioned Jay as the self-proclaimed stereotypical ‘old man out of touch with new technology’. Indeed, it was not only Jay that was the victim of social pressures of being tech savvy, Claire identifies herself as this to avoid a fight with her husband. When Claire hangs up on Phil’s, her husband, Facetime whilst he plays Halo, Phil is upset and askes Claire why. Claire responds “Oh you know me, I don’t get Computers” whilst effortlessly multitasking with shortcuts on her laptop. The juxtaposition of this confession with the fact that the viewer can see the tech skills that Claire is exhibiting on her laptop fuels the comedic value of the show. Through playing up to her gender and position within her family, she is playing societal norms to her advantage. The very fact the writers include this for comedic value shows that not only is this gender norm now being challenged within the media but also the mother is positioned as knowing how to play society so she ‘win’.

Overall, I believe the writers of this episode got it spot on. The intrigue that the episode offered due being different sparks the viewer to watch and buy into Claire’s digital life. Indeed, it provokes me to think, could the writers get away with creating a whole series based around screen casting now that the communication has become so ubiquitous in everyday life and within the modern family?

Reference for Marx's Commodity Fetishism: https://www.marxists.org/archive/pilling/works/capital/ch05.htm