THE IMPORTANCE OF EVERYDAY LIFE

In their book, The Social Construction of Reality, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann discuss the importance of the "everyday" communication environment.

The reality of everyday life is organized around the "here" of my body and the "now" of the present. This "here and now" is the focus of my attention to the reality of everyday life....

The reality of everyday life further presents itself to me as an intersubjective world, a world that I share with others. This intersubjectivity sharply differentiates everyday life from other realities of which I am conscious. I am alone in the world of my dreams, but I know that the world of everyday life is as real to others as it is to myself. Indeed, I cannot exist in everyday life without continual interaction and communication with others. I know that my natural attitude to this world corresponds to the natural attitude of others, that they also comprehend the objectifications by which this world is ordered, that they also organize this world around the "here and now" of their being in it and have projects for working in it.

I also know, of course, that the others have a perspective on this common world that is not identical with mine. My "here" is their "there." My "now" does not fully overlap with theirs. All the same, I know that I live with them in a common world. Most importantly, I know that there is an ongoing correspondence between my meanings and their meanings in this world, that we share a common sense about its reality.... The reality of everyday life is taken for granted as reality. It does not require additional verification over and beyond its simple presence. It is simply there....

- Berger and Luckmann 22-3

Thus, "everyday life" serves as the environment within which human communication occurs. Similarly, human communication serves as an environment of "everyday life." This complementary relationship implies that communication both draws meaning from and helps to establish the reality of "everyday life."