chapter 16

Social change is the transformation of culture and social institutions over time. This process has four major characteristics. Social change happens all the time like our thoughts about our average life span. Social change is sometime intentional but often unplanned, like the damage to the environment by cars after they were invent to replace horses. Social change is controversial like replacing urine and manure from horses with carbon monoxide. Some change matters more than other like changes in fads compared to the invention of computers.