Goffman (2010) has used social order to mean the particular patterns of behavior that are associated with rules of the space, be those rules real or perceived. Being that public spaces are controlled by this civil inattention, Goffman states that people have a certain right to be able to keep to themselves and go through their day with minimal social interaction (2010). People protect their sense of personal space by engaging in this civil inattention as a way of coping with the confined space and to distance themselves from the other occupants of the bus. This distance is obviously not in the form of actual space as that is hard to come by in the small bus quarters, but rather through a series of actions that allow people to break connections, disengage, and to ward off other passengers aboard the bus. It is this particular phenomenon that I was interested in observing during my own bus ride around St.
Goffman (2010) has used social order to mean the particular patterns of behavior that are associated with rules of the space, be those rules real or perceived. Being that public spaces are controlled by this civil inattention, Goffman states that people have a certain right to be able to keep to themselves and go through their day with minimal social interaction (2010). People protect their sense of personal space by engaging in this civil inattention as a way of coping with the confined space and to distance themselves from the other occupants of the bus. This distance is obviously not in the form of actual space as that is hard to come by in the small bus quarters, but rather through a series of actions that allow people to break connections, disengage, and to ward off other passengers aboard the bus. It is this particular phenomenon that I was interested in observing during my own bus ride around St.