Everyday life
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.
This article is about the sociological concept. For other uses, see Everyday Life.
Human diurnality 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 (apart from shift work) mostly involves a daily schedule, beginning in the morning. This produces the daily rush hours experienced by many millions, and the drive time focused on by radio broadcasters. Evening is often leisure time. Bathing every day is a custom for many.
Beyond these broad similarities, lifestyles vary and different people spend their days differently. For example, nomadic life differs from sedentism, and among the sedentary, urban people live differently from rural folk. Differences in the lives of the rich and the poor, or between laborers and intellectuals, may go beyond their working hours. Children and adults also vary in what they do each day.
Language[edit]
People's everyday lives are shaped through language and communication. They choose what to do with their time based on opinions and ideals formed through the discourse they are exposed to.[7] Much of the dialogue people are subject to comes from the mass media, which is an important factor in what shapes human experience.[8] 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, says people should seek to understand the rhetoric 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".[9]
Activities of daily living[edit]
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 professionals 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 and the elderly.[10] ADLs are defined as "the things we normally do...such as feeding ourselves, bathing, dressing, grooming, work, homemaking, and leisure".[11] The ability and the extent to which the elderly can perform these activities is at the focus of gerontology and understandings of later life.[12]