"In the first worldwide web, human kind spread around the world in hunting and gathering tribes. The exchange of ideas and cultural expressions (song and dance), technologies (bows and arrows, the control of fire), and genes (exogamous marriages between members of different bands and tribes) swept across Africa, Asia, and Europe and into the Americas and Oceania." (van Dijk, 22).
The evolution of networking techniques over time has given use the worldwide web as we know it today, the web can only expand, we never truly cut off or stop using pieces of it. We still use all the methods of communication and networking that we had before the likes of the internet, we still communicate verbally, we have developed our methods of communication with imagery and signs, we have created postal networks and invented tools such as the television and telephone. All of these things are used to share information and contribute to the further growth of the worldwide web and global network.
I feel the global network as it is today has contributed a lot to the issue of imagined communities, I'm not saying it is to blame for the problem but it is a factor worth considering. With online social networking as it is today people can communicate with their friends and family no matter how far away they are from each other. This style of social networking has in a way inadvertently caused a fall in communication in local communities, you don't communicate with your local community but your own circle of family, friends and acquaintances. People no longer need to meet to remain socially active with each other, this isn't a new thing but the rise of the internet has played a large part in making thing kind of social lifestyle more popular. It is now very easy to be friends with people you have never met and may never actually meet in person.
Though a fairly well known concept I only really started to think about the Six Degrees of Separation concept when someone jokingly showed me the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game. For context, Kevin Bacon is a famous actor who has featured in so many film and television productions that it is joked that he can be linked to almost any famous person through the Six Degrees of Separation, there is even a website dedicated to listing them all (http://oracleofbacon.org/). The Kevin Bacon website is interesting because it gets the concept across in a way that almost any person can understand. The Six Degrees of Separation can also been seen in our own lives, I have had several experiences in the past where I have met a stranger and found they know me through one of my family or friends, it makes me think that if we look hard enough it should be possible to link any two people in the world no matter how distant they are from each other.
I do agree with the argument put forward by Manuel Castells (1996) that the concept of the information society is incorrect as all society is based on information. His concept of an "informational" society is much more accurate, our current contemporary society is one that values information highly, even trivial information has value. Just look at the data created in social media, that information is some of the most valuable in the world right now. Social media data is created for so little yet is is worth so much to a number of corporations for a large range of reasons. The likes of Facebook use the search data and viewing habits of their site users to find trends and help corporations advertise their products better, websites such as Google do a similar thing with the data gathered from the uses of their search engines. Even entertainment media is valued highly, though sites such as youtube it is possible to have large sums of money though advertising of your videos, videos such as the one below made the uploader a large sum of money when it went viral and was spread across the communication network of the internet.
I think a lot can be said about the way developments in networking has changed the behavior of human beings over time . I think the internet boom is one of the big if not the biggest factor that makes this current generation of young people differ from the last. Whether or not online networking has changed the way society interacts for better or for worse is a matter of personal opinion, on a normal day to day basis you can make arguments for and against the modern networked society. There are however cases to be made where we can say the development of network methods has benefited society for the better. When the London Terrorist Attacks took place on the 7th of July 2005 people used the internet and their mobile phones networks to spread the word about the attack and they did so at such a pace that the news had already broke out and become widespread before the media could prepare their own news reports. (Shirky, 2010) That is just an example of the power you can give a society when your networks become more developed, many of these information sharing methods didn't even exist 20 years previously.
The amount of progress made with networking over the last century has been incredible and it is more than anything else the reason why people often comment that the world feels smaller. Information can travel through our networks swiftly. For many the invention of text messaging is a necessity in their lives as it allows them to communicate with people without ever interfering anyone else. People should try and become more aware of these networks though because as things are they are clearly taken for granted by people who don't know or care for the progress and prominence of networks.
References:
Shirky, Clay, Cognitive Surplus, Penguin, New York, 2010.
Van Dijk, J. (2006) The Network Society. London: Sage. Introduction. Chapter 2.
Jaron Lanier: http://www.salon.com/2013/05/12/jaron_lanier_the_internet_destroyed_the_middle_class/[1]
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