Characteristics of Modernity

1. A comparatively high degree of urbanization and the increasingly urban-centeredness of the total society.

2. A relatively high degree of use of inanimate energy, the widespread circulation of commodities, and the growth of service facilities.

3. Extensive spatial interraction of members of society and the widespread participation of such members in economic and political affairs.

4. Widespread literacy accompanied by the spread of secular, and increasingly scientific, orientation of the individual to the environment.

5. An extensive and penetrative network of mass communication.

6. The existence of large-scale social institutions such as government, business, industry, and the increasingly bureaucratic organization of such institutions (i.e., rationalized and routinized).

7. Increased unification and integration of large bodies of population under one control (nations) and the growing interaction of such units (international relations).

Putting it simply, the "modern" is defined as urban, literate, scientific, industrialzed, organized, bureaucratic, integrated and founded upon a modern education system that features a scientific view of the universe, and sustained by a mass communication system which allows for the development of a mass consumer society.