Pros And Cons Of Breaking Social Norms

Content Project With todays society being the way it is there are so many possibilities of breaking a social norm it’s not even funny. For this project I have decided to violate two social norms. The first social violation I will break will be that I go a whole day and answer the phone by saying “goodbye”. Which this isn’t a big social norm break but, I chose this because I know that even though it may be small it will have a dramatic affect. People will actually react to this social break of the normal of saying “hey, hello, hi, or what up”. I just feel like this is one of the ones that I will actually be able to have more of a reaction and have more to go off of. For the telephone experiment I will act it out on the day of November 13th

It honestly really is hard to try and find a small social norm to break. All in all I found one that would be too crazy. The social norm that I decided to break was saying “hello” when you answer the phone. Yes, it doesn’t sound exciting or anything but saying “hello” every time you pick up the phone is just something you say out of habit and know how. The twist that I put on it was every time I answered the phone I said “goodbye”. The reason why I chose this was I wanted to see the different ways people would counter back after I answered saying “goodbye. How their tone and mood changed. What actions they took and what other people thought about me answering the phone by saying: goodbye”. Which talk about miss communication and interpretation. It took me a full day of breaking this social norm and every time before I would answer the phone I got sort of nervous. Once I answered the phone though I thought it was the funniest thing and, I was having the hardest time holding back the laughter. Then after either I hung up or they hung up I was just thinking to my self “how in the world did I do that?” “That was the funniest thing!” While I thought about bringing a friend everywhere I went but the plans just didn’t workout with our times. I didn’t have friend to observe with me I observed for myself. I had a number of calls that day but will only touch on a few. The first call that I answered was at the hospital in the waiting room. The call was a telemarketer and, yes sadly I get those things on my cellphone. Anyways I answered it by saying “goodbye” which the lady on the other line on the phone was completely confused. Which I thought that her confusion to be quit humorous. She said, “ I haven’t even said anything so why say goodbye” and then started on her spill about health care or something of the sort. Which I thought telemarketers had a script and only went by that script. We had a long