French sociologist Emil Durkheim could have never predicted a world as technologically advanced as ours.

He could have never predicted cell phones: he could have never predicted that we would be able to carry these three-by-five inch devices in our pockets every day that can connect us to the other side of the world with the tap of a screen.

He could have never predicted the concept of an "online presence" because he never knew an "internet." He could have never predicted that we could "hail" a sort of taxicab from inside a building by opening the ever-famous Uber application.

So what could he predict?

One of Durkheim's most famous writings is called "The Division of Labor in Society." While Marx viewed the division of labor—imagine, for our purposes, men in an automobile factory performing specialized tasks like creating wheels, seats, and engines—as an exploitative entity with a cruel capitalist, Durkheim had a more positive viewpoint.

Specialization and the division of labor, he viewed, as entities that actually create social cohesion—a concept that can be applied to the sharing economy of today.

Briefly, the sharing economy is an umbrella term, according to Wikipedia. For our purposes though, we will think of it as the system that allows us to—very literally—share goods and services. Think of Uber, Airbnb, and Letgo.

Now consider these resources. They serve as forms of convenience to make our days easier. From a psychological standpoint, when we hail an Uber or utilize Airbnb we are acting on our own accord. We are doing it for ourselves, because it's easy and we require a service. We're not considering the feelings or needs of the people on the other end who may be providing the service, nor are they thinking of us.

However, from a sociological standpoint, from Durkheim's perspective, we are all working together. We are working interdependently and actually creating a greater social cohesion than existed before.

Consider a company like Uber. Uber considers its drivers to be private contractors. Though the corporation gets a cut of their revenue, Uber drivers set their own schedules and their own hours. They don't have to report up to anyone, nor are they checked up on.

Within the company itself, all drivers are doing the same thing. And so, there is no specialization or interdependence. To see this interdependence, we must look at the sharing economy as a whole and see the many companies that constitute it. I explained this concept in a sociology essay:

"Specialized workers like doctors and pharmacists, though focused on their own tasks, rely on people with other jobs. The doctor needs the Uber driver to take him to work, and the Uber driver needs money from the doctor to pay the pharmacist for medication."

Thus, each of the parts fit together accordingly to create an interdependent society. That's to say, despite being divided, we need each other.

Durkheim, I believe, would have liked this. Had he lived in our time, perhaps, he would have been amazed and elated at the interdependence that consumes our daily lives.

We don't think about it day to day, but at this state of evolution in society, we really do depend on one another.

We don't consider that in certain primitive societies, individuals did the same sorts of things. Durkheim, of course, could explain this better than I can, but to simplify, just consider there not being Uber drivers or doctors or pharmacists, but everyone knowing a little bit about everything and helping out where they can.

We don't live like this anymore.

But it isn't just our social media. It's our connection in business and work.

We need each other everyday. We need a human resources department in hospitals, just like we do in nonprofits. We need Uber drivers in New York and Shanghai. We need computer specialists in liberal arts colleges and research centers. We need writers in engineering firms and engineers to fix our cars.

As we specialize more, we will need each other more. That is the sociology of today. And it will continue to evolve.