It is was on Wednesday evening that I decided to visit one of the Starbucks coffee shops located at Gibson Shopping Center at 2828 N Broadway Street. This evening visit was not a usual visit because I was not going there not only to take my favorite white chocolate Starbucks coffee but also to complete my sociology assignment. Conducting a naturalistic observation on Starbucks coffee appears to be a great idea because this is one of the places where people of different kinds meet and interact. After purchasing my favorite coffee, I managed to sit in a position where I could observe people as they enter, walk into the counter, or leave. As I sat to take my coffee, I realized that people from all lifestyles were persistently walking in and out, catching up with their families and friends, or doing homework and studying. From the corner of the shop, I could spot a student with her teacher who seems to be helping her with studies. Next to me there were two well-dressed men sitting on the opposite side of the table and seems to be an interviewer and interviewee. Briefly, the place has a variety of individuals of various age groups.
One of the applicable sociology paradigms in the Starbucks coffee shop settings is the symbolic interactionism. The paradigm explains how people create meaning about and for themselves and the people around them. Starbucks illustrates how the society is established and maintained through recurring reactions among people. According to Carter and Fuller, "Central to symbolic interactionist thought is the idea that individuals use language and significant symbols in their communication with others" (1). In other words, the Starbucks offer a public space where people can connect and establish bonds. In this setting, Starbucks provides a neutral space where people can generate meaning through social interactions, and they apply these meanings to their worlds. For instance, I noticed that almost three-quarter of the people in the shop visits the place not because of coffee, but because is a neutral space that provides a home-like atmosphere where people can interact. Therefore, people has established that Starbucks is not only the place for coffee but also a place for social interaction. For instance, different customers such as businesspeople, mothers, and college students found the place favorable to meet and talk over coffee and employees who are making the coffee.
The social atmosphere in the Starbucks illustrates the application of Toennies' concept of Gesellschaft, which is the opposite of the community feeling. According to Brint, Gesellschaft concepts identifies people in a public space with dissimilar ways of life, beliefs, and dispersed ties and infrequent interaction (2). Consequently, this contradicts with Durkheim argument that community should not be seen as a physical entity or social structure "but as a set of variable properties of human interaction" (Brint 3). In the coffee shop, only a few people, about 25 percent, talked to each other. That majority of the population seems only to interact with the workers as they present their orders and then use their laptops as soon as they find a place to stay. Some of the people were listening to music from their phones and laptops and seemed not to bother what other people are doing. In the line to purchase the drinks, I notice infrequent interaction as the most people waited in the line silently. However, from the workers' perspective, it was evident that there was a community feeling where workers had integrated ties and recurrent interaction. For instance, workers interact with each other to ensure that orders are correctly filled. One could frequently spot the worker discussing or even arranging regular attendance to customers who they value as a family. Therefore, the association among the workers or between workers and customers can be described as Gemeinschaft association, while the interaction with the customers is highly Gesellschaft associations.
Another sociological concept that was applicable during the observation of Starbucks was the concept of the social role. The social role defines the expectation for the individuals who occupy a particular social status or position. Boudreau asserts that regarding sociological role theory, expectation can be defined as collective norms that are found in the functional role (4). I could observe that customers were fixed in their role of being customers since Starbucks has provided an environment where customers can be served. Similarly, the waiters of the workers were stuck in their role of service the customers and maximizing their experience. However, I was lucky to experience a role exit as a process where one of the workers disengaged from the role central to his identity to establish a new identity and role. Buckley et al. define role exit as "the process of disengagement from a role that is central to one's self-identity and the reestablishment of an identity in a new role that takes into account one's ex-role" (62). I noticed one worker who exited the premises after her working hours were over and after 10 minutes, she came in together with a small boy carrying his school bag. As they passed along where I was sitting, I realized that the worker has now acquired the role of a mother as I heard the boy calling her mom. As I observed her, I realized that the worker, now a mother, was paying more attention to the kid compared to how she served other customers.
In conclusion, I thought that the experience as analyst or observer would be hectic and difficult. However, with the understating of the social paradigm and concepts, I released it is an easy task to observe and take notes. Therefore, the experience was enjoyable and thrilling. However, I was not able to learn the influence of socio-economic status on the interaction because I had limited time. In this case, I will focus in this area and revise on the concept relevant to this area. What was excited from this observation is that I was able to apply some of the paradigms and concepts that we have learned from the sociology class. In addition, I confirmed that that the technology is diverting us from the real world.
Works Cited
Boudreau, Kelly. "Role Theory: The Line between Roles as Design and Socialization in EverQuest." DIGRA Conf.. 2005.
Brazier, Michelle J. Points of Departure: A Collection of Contemporary Essays. 3rd ed. Mason: Cengage Learning, 2011. Print.
Brint, Steven. "Gemeinschaft Revisited: A Critique and Reconstruction of the Community Concept." Sociological Theory 19.1 (2001): 1-23. Print.
Buckley, M R, Anthony R. Wheeler, and Jonathon R. B. Halbesleben. Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management: Volume 33. Emerald Group Publishing, 2015. Print.
Michael J Carter and Celene Fuller,‘Symbolic interactionism’, Sociopedia.isa, (2015) 1-17. DOI: 10.1177/205684601561
