Living In a global village - How the Internet has changed the face ofinteraction

[caption id="attachment_21973" align="alignleft" width="300"] Booth volunteer represents the handicrafts of the global village.[/caption]

Rob Chernish---Have you ever wondered how Earth has become smaller in some ways?  For example, how does someone in a tiny town get toys from China, pasta from France, coffee from Columbia, sausage from Spain, and who knows what, from somewhere else?   In days gone by, going to the market was a weekly or monthly affair, and the trip usually involved bringing some supplies to trade with your neighbors and others in the village.  There were games played and the interaction and social activities were vast, and it is with this concept in mind, that the global village has been introduced via social networking and the worldwide web.   

No longer are the people of the same race or from the same tribe, nor are the products at the market in the village all from the same producers, instead, what we are seeing now is a total global world where instead of having multiple small villages isolated from each other, we have a global village.

The concept of the “global village” was first coined by Marshall McLuhan, a popular contemporary media theorist who studied the impacts of globalization and wrote many books during the 1960s, illustrating the future potential of this concept.  McLuhan has since passed, but his predictions have fulfilled themselves in our modern world.  No longer are people isolated from other cultures and races, but are intertwined among a network both physically in our modern societies, as well as digitally across the internet and social networking.

How is this village evolving?  The answer has yet to be given on how our world will continue to evolve, but given the increased connectedness of international and national trade agreements and greater population migrations, it looks like it is going to continue to mesh and mingle.  Consider the currency of the Euro, and how it has impacted the countries of Europe by bridging them through their common currency.  This is how villages of the past also became united.

Other examples are most prevalent in the marketplace, where if you stop to take a step back, you can see the global movement of products and supplies much like the caravans of old.  However, the most obvious examples have been introduced by the internet and social media following  McLuhan’s prediction where he envisioned how the global population would be connected through time and space by electric technology to add:

• Instant Communication


• Removes Space / Regional Barriers


• Audio - Video Interaction With Anyone - Anywhere - Anytime


• Extension Of Consciousness


• Increased Social Functions


• Revolutionary Social Structure


• Realtime Interconnectedness 

Many of the traits of the traditional village, especially those relating to communication and interaction have presented themselves in a global village through the advent of the internet and information communications technology.

What other ways can you think of that make our world like a traditional village?   Do you think it is safe to say it is a global village?  Do you think McLuhan was right in his predictions?   Many people are still wondering whether technology will bring us together or push us apart, but the growing consensus, especially among the younger generations who openly embrace the aspects of social networking that technology offers say that is gives them much more freedom to interact with their friends across space and time in ways they never dreamed of.  Moving forward with new technology that continues to make communication even easier than our current models is breaking down many of the traditional barriers that prevented communication outside of closed groups and communities.  Even the Khan in the hills in Mongolia has a cell phone now, albeit no service, but one day our local village will become the global village we live in….if Mcluhan’s predictions were correct.

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Author Bio: Rob Chernish is a media theorist and alumni from the University of Lethbridge who is currently studying the effects of mass media on local village populations.