The New Global Village

Social Networks have made spatial distance less relevant. They allow instant contant with other people despite the physical distance separating them. This gives evidence to the fact that social networks or online communication have turned the world into a global village by allowing interaction among individuals no matter where on earth they are located.

The "virtuality" offered by social networks thus blurs the geographical contraints. People are spending more and more time online communicating or doing things with people abroad, which is evidence of virtual migration. For example, from home one can recieve and send emails, read news about many countries and even take virtual tours to those countries.

This gives further evidence that the globe has been turned into a village by these new media technologies. Users are making new friends across the globe and are becoming part-citizens of a space beyond the geography of their own country. They form their interactions on the basis of mutual interest rather than geography of where they live.

This blurring of geographical constrains thus no longer narrows interaction, as people are able to select their acquaintances by other criteria such as common interests, status, economic class, academic discipline, or ethnic group.