ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Harold Garfinkel

Harold Garfinkel was a grown-up who studied how people act in their everyday lives like playing with toys, talking to friends, and following rules. He was curious about how people make sense of things they see and how they behave in certain situations.

Let's imagine that you're playing with your friend at your house and your dad tells you it's time for dinner. You will stop playing and sit at the table to eat with your family because you know it's something you're supposed to do every day.

Harold Garfinkel was interested in understanding how people like you know what to do when your dad calls for dinner, and how we follow rules and social norms that everyone agrees to. He called this "ethnomethodology", which means the study of how people make sense of their everyday world.

Sometimes, people break social norms or rules, and this is called "breaching experiments". For example, if you suddenly start speaking in a different language that your friend doesn't understand, they might feel confused or uncomfortable. Or if you stand too close to someone while talking, they might feel like you're invading their personal space.

Harold Garfinkel did many experiments to find out why people react in certain ways when these breaching experiments happen. He wanted to understand how people use rules and norms to make sense of their social world.

Overall, Harold Garfinkel was a grown-up who was really curious about how people understand and make sense of their everyday lives, and why we follow certain rules and social norms.