The sociology of work has been of interest to sociologists for as long as the discipline has existed. This is because sociologists are interested in how the world, including the social world and the physical world, is created and recreated by people. For the founding fathers of sociology, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber and especially Karl Marx, work was one of the most important social instiututions in the modern world. For marxists work, in the form of paid work, is the most important social relation.

work is important to sociologists because it is important to individuals: it's an activity that most of us spend most of our lives doing. Work is a significant contributor to our identity, in both individual and collective settings.

Karl Marx that paid work was where commodities are made, workers are exploited, profits are generated, the classes of capitalism are forged and aspirations are shaped. It is also where the two classes of a Marxist society are determined. The Burgiousie, owning the means of production and the proliteriate who have no means of production and thus must sell their labour powe. The terms capitalists and workers are synonyms for bourgiousie and proliteriate respectively.

Work is also where aspirations are manufactured. It is where that which may be deemed useful is given form, however, this too is not free of capitalist influence. As those with the spending power in an economy, the capitalist class are those which determine, in a "free market" what is deemed usefel and valuable. Thus they also shape the norms of society.

Max Weber wrote in 1905 of the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. capitalism is the most fateful force of modern life, with it's origins rooted in puritanism and the Calvinist belief in predestination. In order to show faith, one was required to work hard and the commitment to labour was a calling; lived frugally and worked continually to demonstrate their piety and status as one of God's chosen.

The distinction between paid work and labour, and the proportion they contribute to the economy is has been a bone of contention for some time. Marx and Engels focused on paid work as a main driver of capitalist societies. Unpaid work or labour was regarded by these founding fathers as a residual category that takes place in the domestic sphere. Such marginalisation has raised the ire of feminists since at least the late nineteenth century, who have argued that capitalist societies are sustained as much by the realm of unpaid work such as domestic labour as by paid work.

Automation is a major worry for the current conception of the labor market. Many jobs face automation in the near future, and the possibilities for unemployment as a result are beyond worrying. This rise of automation has been spurred by continuous expansion of processing power by computers, and it has been argued that we have or are entering a second computer age, where instead of augmenting human workers, computers have begun replacing them. This is on top of the fact that as a result of computerization, productivity \per worker has skyrocketed in recent years, and while inflation has kept pace, wages have not, meaning many jobs that do survive automation, will continually underpay workers.

Modern work is distinct from previous iterations in that the traditional boundaries of work have dissolved in the technology age. The distinctions between work and leisure, public and private working space and between the home and the office have all become blurred as people have begun working from home and carrying devices allowing them to bring work with them everywhere.

In Dalton Conley's 'Elsewhere, U.S.A' he proposes the idea of "individuals": that individuality has been undermined to the point that people in the modern age are simply fluid personalities managing data streams rather than genuine personalities. He also points out that mobile devices can be perceived as portable workshops, meaning that work has slowly penetrated the sphere of private life, especially as work hours continue to increase and job security crumbles as the competitive job market strips workers of collective bargaining power. Finally he points to the commercialization of everything, including the outsourcing of traditional tasks such as cooking and childcare as proof that private life has been completely infiltrated by work.

Judy Wajcman, in 'The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism', talks about how pressed for time people have become as a result of the new paradigm of work in the modern era. She says that predictably, most of the existing studies about work spilling over into family time take a management or organizational perspective. The assumption is that the dramatic increase in workers' use of ICT's necessarily extends working time.

For example, a Canadian study of managers, professionals, and technical workers actually defines cell phones, laptops, home computers, and BlackBerry devices as work extending technology - meaning the act of engaging in work related activities outside of regular offices hours in locations other than the business office. Some workers in this study, especially heavy BlackBerry users, did report a sense of having less family time as a result of working from home. Intriguingly, however, the main finding was that the very same features of ICT's that increase perceived control and facilitate communication are also the source of many oppressive features.

Sociology requires a sociologist to take into account emotions. This is the sociology of emotions, and looks at the biological and social construction of emotions, as explained by the work of Theodore Kemper. Good examples of the complex role emotions play in social interaction is Romantic Love and emotional entanglement in group identity.

The biological component of motions is located within the individual and inherited as part of their biological makeup. It is closely linked with bodily changes such as blushing, muscle tension and hair standing on end and it essential for human survival, such as fear to avoid danger.

Socially constructed emotions are part of culture, and as such vary between different cultures and societies. They may change over time as they are a result of social climate, and are contextual as appropriate use and performance of them are learned through socialization.

Theodore Kemper's theory of emotions operates on the idea that biological emotions are primary and experience on an innate level, whilst secondary emotions are constructed from primary emotions in social settings. The primary emotions are fear, anger, depression (grief), and Satisfaction (happiness). Secondary Emotions are things such as guilt (anger at the self), shame (social fear), pride (social happiness), gratitude (social satisfaction), love (happiness relationships) and nostalgia (happiness and grief in the past).

However society has evolved a stigma around the idea of feelings. In most societies emotions are equated to excess and disorder. Hilman (1920) - the chaotic energy of emotions makes the, dangerous to anyone in their vicinity and weakens the person experiencing them.

This predetermined script builds sets of expectations for what romantic love is. The ideas that all you need is love, that love is tha basis of all relationships, that it is best for women if love is the crucial factor in defining relationships (making her own choice), that romantic love allows women to escape patriarchal control and that falling out of love ends a relationship are all relatively new ideas in the social landscape. This shows us how the modern conception of love has become central to the modern experience of life, and social interactions in the wider world.

Emotional achievement is "The attainment of self-validating emotional experiences and expressions through active and creative persuits." Emotions are inextricably intertwined with identities and action in this movement. The emotional dynamics generated int his process dignificantly contributed to movement mobilization.