Everyday life, daily life or routine life comprises the ways in which people typically act, think, and feel on a daily basis. Everyday life may be described as mundane, routine, natural, habitual, or normal. Human

diurnality Diurnality is a form of plant and animal behavior characterized by activity during daytime, with a period of sleeping or other inactivity at night. The common adjective used for daytime activity is "diurnal". The timing of activity by an animal ...

means most people sleep at least part of the night and are active in daytime. Most eat two or three meals in a day.

Working time Working(laboring) time is the period of time that a person spends at paid labor. Unpaid labor such as personal housework or caring for children or pets is not considered part of the working week. Many countries regulate the work week by law, ...

(apart from shift work) mostly involves a daily schedule, beginning in the morning. This produces the daily

rush hour A rush hour (American English, British English) or peak hour (Australian English) is a part of the day during which traffic congestion on roads and crowding on public transport is at its highest. Normally, this happens twice every weekday: o ...

s experienced by many millions, and the drive time focused on by radio broadcasters. Evening is often

leisure Leisure has often been defined as a quality of experience or as free time. Free time is time spent away from business, work, job hunting, domestic chores, and education, as well as necessary activities such as eating and sleeping. Lei ...

time.

Bathing Bathing is the act of washing the body, usually with water, or the immersion of the body in water. It may be practiced for personal hygiene, religious ritual or therapeutic purposes. By analogy, especially as a recreational activity, the term is ...

every day is a custom for many. Beyond these broad similarities, lifestyles vary and different people spend their days differently. For example,

nomad A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the po ...

ic life differs from

sedentism In cultural anthropology, sedentism (sometimes called sedentariness; compare sedentarism) is the practice of living in one place for a long time. , the large majority of people belong to sedentary cultures. In evolutionary anthropology and a ...

, and among the sedentary, urban people live differently from

rural In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are de ...

folk. Differences in the lives of the rich and the poor, or between laborers and

intellectual An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator o ...

s, may go beyond their working hours.

Children A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...

and adults also vary in what they do each day.

Sociological perspectives

Everyday life is a key concept in

cultural studies Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture (including popular culture) and its historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices re ...

and is a specialized subject in the field of

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...

. Some argue that, motivated by

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...

and industrialism's degrading effects on human existence and perception, writers and artists of the 19th century turned more towards self-reflection and the portrayal of everyday life represented in their writings and art to a noticeably greater degree than in past works, for example

Renaissance literature Renaissance literature refers to European literature which was influenced by the intellectual and cultural tendencies associated with the Renaissance. The literature of the Renaissance was written within the general movement of the Renaissance ...

's interest in

hagiography A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies might ...

and politics. Other theorists dispute this argument based on a long history of writings about daily life which can be seen in works from

Ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cu ...

medieval Christianity Christianity in the Middle Ages covers the history of Christianity from the fall of the Western Roman Empire (). The end of the period is variously defined. Depending on the context, events such as the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman ...

and the

Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...

. In the study of everyday life gender has been an important factor in its conceptions. Some theorists regard

women A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or Adolescence, adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female hum ...

as the quintessential representatives and victims of everyday life. The connotation of everyday life is often negative and is distinctively separated from exceptional moments by its lack of distinction and differentiation, ultimately defined as the essential, taken-for-granted continuum of mundane activity that outlines forays into more

esoteric Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas ...

experiences. It is the non-negotiable

reality Reality is the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent within a system, as opposed to that which is only imaginary. The term is also used to refer to the ontological status of things, indicating their existence. In physical terms, re ...

that exists amongst all social groupings without discrimination and is an unavoidable basis for which all human endeavor exists. Much of everyday life is automatic in that it is driven by current environmental features as mediated by automatic

cognitive processing Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

of those features, and without any mediation by conscious choice, according to social psychologist John A. Bargh. Daily life is also studied by sociologists to investigate how it is organised and given meaning. A sociological journal called the ''

Journal of Mundane Behavior The ''Journal of Mundane Behavior'' was a triannual peer-reviewed academic journal of sociology covering everyday behavior and experiences. It was published online with three issues a year. The journal's first issue came out in February 2000 and ...

'', published 2000 - 2004, studied these everyday actions.

Leisure

Daily

entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousa ...

once consisted mainly of telling stories in the evening. This custom developed into the

theatre of ancient Greece Ancient Greek theatre was a theatrical culture that flourished in ancient Greece from 700 BC. The city-state of Athens, which became a significant cultural, political, and religious place during this period, was its centre, where the theatre w ...

and other professional entertainments.

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spell ...

later became less a mysterious specialty of

scholar A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researche ...

s, and more a common pleasure for people who could afford books. During the 20th century

mass media Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets. Broadcast media transmit informati ...

became prevalent in rich countries, creating among other things a daily

prime time Prime time or the peak time is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for a television show. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...

to consume

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a tradi ...

and other professionally produced works. Different media forms serve different purposes in different individuals' everyday lives—which give people the opportunities to make choices about what media form(s)—watching

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

, using the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...

, listening to the

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...

, or reading newspapers or magazines—most effectively help them to accomplish their tasks.Baym, N. (2010), ‘Making New Media Make Sense’ in Personal Connections in the Digital Age, Polity Press, Ch. 2. Many people have steadily increased their daily use of the Internet, over all other media forms.

Language

People's everyday lives are shaped through

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

and

communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inqui ...

. They choose what to do with their time based on opinions and ideals formed through the

discourse Discourse is a generalization of the notion of a conversation to any form of communication. Discourse is a major topic in social theory, with work spanning fields such as sociology, anthropology, continental philosophy, and discourse analysis. ...

they are exposed to. Much of the dialogue people are subject to comes from the

, which is an important factor in what shapes human experience. The media uses language to make an impact on one's everyday life, whether that be as small as helping to decide where to eat or as big as choosing a representative in government. To improve people's everyday life, Phaedra Pezzullo, professor in the Department of Communication and Culture at

Indiana University Bloomington Indiana University Bloomington (IU Bloomington, Indiana University, IU, or simply Indiana) is a public research university in Bloomington, Indiana. It is the flagship campus of Indiana University and, with over 40,000 students, its largest c ...

, says people should seek to understand the

rhetoric Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate par ...

that so often and unnoticeably changes their lives. She writes that “...rhetoric enables us to make connections... It's about understanding how we engage with the world.”

Activities of daily living

'' Activities of daily living'' (ADL) is a term used in healthcare to refer to daily self care activities within an individual's place of residence, in outdoor environments, or both.

Health professional A health professional, healthcare professional, or healthcare worker (sometimes abbreviated HCW) is a provider of health care treatment and advice based on formal training and experience. The field includes those who work as a nurse, physician (suc ...

s routinely refer to the ability or inability to perform ADLs as a measurement of the functional status of a person, particularly in regard to people with

disabilities Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, ...

and the

elderly Old age refers to ages nearing or surpassing the life expectancy of human beings, and is thus the end of the human life cycle. Terms and euphemisms for people at this age include old people, the elderly (worldwide usage), OAPs (British usage ...

."Activities of Daily Living Evaluation." ''Encyclopedia of Nursing & Allied Health''. ed. Kristine Krapp. Gale Group, Inc., 2002. eNotes.com. 200
Enotes Nursing Encyclopedia
Accessed on: 11 October 2007 ADLs are defined as "the things we normally do...such as feeding ourselves, bathing, dressing, grooming, work, homemaking, and leisure."MedicineNet.com Medical Dictionary
/ref> The ability and the extent to which the elderly can perform these activities is at the focus of

gerontology Gerontology ( ) is the study of the social, cultural, psychological, cognitive, and biological aspects of aging. The word was coined by Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov in 1903, from the Greek , ''geron'', "old man" and , ''-logia'', "study of". The fi ...

and understandings of later life.Katz, Stephen
''Busy bodies: Activities, aging, and the management of everyday life''
- Journal of aging studies, Elsevier, 2000. p. 136.

References

Bibliography

* Wyer, Robert S.; Bargh, John A. (1997)
''The Automaticity of Everyday life''
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.