Every single day, countless social interactions occur between individuals throughout the world. Although most downplay the significance of their exchanges with others, part of sociologist George Simmel’s work aims to explain the nature and specific components of social interactions. According to Simmel, each social interaction can be broken into three parts: its form, content, and social types. That is, the form is what type of interaction takes place, content is why the interaction occurs, and social types details who is part of the interaction as well as what their identity is within the event. For example, a specific social interaction from my life is when my classmates and I competed in the 2014 New Jersey Association of Counties’ Vocational-Technical Schools Cook-Off, where we had to prepare five hundred portions of an appetizer. In this essay, I will break down the aforementioned social …show more content…
In my specific example, the form of the interaction was undoubtedly cooperation, and the content was the opportunity to receive both awards and recognition. Within the team, the social types were a mix of friends, enemies, and acquaintances—but when it came time to compete, we were all teammates. Overall, while completing this paper, I found it interesting that any given social interaction can be broken down into the specific categories set forth by Simmel. As a result, I find Simmel’s version of social interaction to be useful when trying to explain the social world, especially since it allows every possible social interaction imaginable to be broken down. Furthermore, what I find most useful is the fact that Simmel’s view provides an explanation for why each social interaction occurs, which can help to explain behavior and why people do what they do within the social