Question

McDonaldization-so what? Give an example of McDonaldization in your own life that is not already listed here (and if relevant, upload a picture or share a link to content online). What do we gain by McDonaldization? What do we lose?

Answer 1

• McDonaldization refers to the idea that society is adopting many of the processes used by fast food restaurants. The trend, identified by George Ritzer in his book The McDonaldization of Society, focuses on five concepts (efficiency, control, predictability, calculability, and non-human technology) that have led to the success of fast food restaurants.
• One major example I can think of is social networking,which is not just affecting my own life but everyone's life.We all have smart phones and the world is literally on our finger tips.They are efficient, they can calculate and keep a history, they are predictable and they can give control to the owner/user.It is controlling our lives.This has its advantage of being connected with the world and having access to information all around the world,but this technology is also dehumanizing us all,leading to less face to face conversations and being more proccupied with our phones and laptops and basically living a life on them than in the real world.
• Affordability is another major advantage of McDonaldization.McDonaldization has allowed regular, middle class people to afford luxuries that even the richest men could not have dreamed of many years ago.
• Many products which were once very expensive are now accessible to almost everyone in developed nations. The wealth of information offered by the internet, as well as many products and services that were likely made possible by McDonaldization, cannot be over looked or downplayed when analyzing the effects of McDonaldization on society.
• McDonaldization has invaded nearly every aspect of society. People should stop fighting McDonaldization and learn to exploit it. In the end, McDonaldization can only dominate our lives to the extent that we allow it to.Instead of letting McDonaldization take advantage of us we must use McDonaldization to our own advantage.