In our society today, many trends and technology play a major role in our everyday lives. Many would ask what ‘McDonaldization’ is, it’s the process by which principles of fast food restaurants have come to dominate every aspect of society according to George Ritzier. George Ritzier explains that there are four main principles that impose on our lives which are predictability, calculability, efficiency, and control. In fact, these are key concepts of rationalization. George Ritzer insists that these concepts of rationalization are not only apparent in work but in our social life as well.
. First is predictability, which is the possibility that regardless of where an individual goes, they are in to get similar service and get a similar item every time. This applies too many workers in different organization which is profoundly normal. It also shoes emphasis on discipline, order, systemization, formalization, routine, consistency, and the list go on. The second component would be calculability which refers to the sign of many fast food chains being able to supply and gain large amounts at a very fast pace and timely matter. However, George Ritzer points out that this emphasis because the more we want the better it would be.
Therefore, in many fast food restaurants such as McDonald’s they super-size everything or double their burgers such a double quarter pounder. The third component would be efficient which is who can perform a task more quickly without using less effort. Many examples of efficiency would be drive-up windows, salad bars, filling up your own cup, ATM machines, gas stations. In fact, many individuals would spend more time being forced to learn all these techniques in today society for many businesses to run more properly and efficiently the last component is controlled, which is replacing us individuals with a non-human technology. Some examples can be how many pilots rely on automated systems, GPS on your cars. As individuals, it makes us less control and many technologies are more in control. Because of the more non-human technology, many workers are easy to be replaced.
There are many ways we can see the effects of McDonaldization in our life. Such as me calling customer service to end up hearing an automated voice that’s telling us to press certain numbers depending on the reason why we called to go to the next step. Another effect of McDonaldization I see in my life would be my education. Such as standardized test, to see how well we are doing as a student and what we were taught so far. Also, if I need to send money to a friend or family member, we use the internet. we also use it for online shopping or searching for a house or car.
In my opinion, I feel that McDonaldization has its pros and cons. The bad thing about McDonaldization is that many individuals would visit these independent restaurants to get a genuine feeling. Work starts to become boring, your days start to be longer because of all the tasks you have to get done, you tend to have the same schedule every day. The fun things in your life start to get postponed. Now on the other hand, because of McDonaldization many individuals do not have to spend so much of their time doing their taxes, traveling, shopping or even making their own food. It so much easier to find different business that they acknowledge since all the chains are the same. This leaves us individual able to have more time to do the things we want to do in life instead of having to wait to do things.