How space and time actively interact in a digital age. Source: Pexels/Pixabay Technology is an obvious game-changer in the way we communicate with one another and has changed how time has progressed for human societies. People can now be closer than they have ever been, even across far distances. Manuel Castells’s space of flows concept highlights this connection perfectly. In short, the space of flows is the observance of how space and time actively interact with a digital age society. So, even though New York City may be distant from other cities across the Atlantic Ocean, it is connected to London because both cities can easily contact each other and are therefore close in the space of flows perspective.
In order to better understand this idea, we need to understand the basic yet complicated element of space. Castells’s Theory of Urbanization in the Information Age sheds some light on this idea. According to his theory, space is intangible: a reality that exists yet cannot be handled in natural science. It is an entity that is created as we gain more experience. So, social relationship development throughout time has been a great influence on how we have progressed with space. While the space of places, or the physical distance between two places, used to be distant, it can now shrink greatly through the ease of transportation technology.
Space has defined the steady progression of time and our connection to it, allowing communicative processes and interpersonal relationships to happen. We have progressed through space as a society, and communicative inventions have drastically accelerated this progress, as our society can still interact across far distances. Again, the space of flows idea can be applied to recognize we are close to faraway places because of these creations. Inventions like the telegraph and the telephone have changed the concept of spatiality and how easy it is to contact others. Further innovations in digital communication significantly enhanced this ability to talk to the other side of the globe with ease.
No longer do individuals need to wait days or months for a letter. Families and friends are no longer required to live in close proximity in order to keep communicating. Technology allows close relationships to be made and kept, despite large distances of separation. Cities are not just individual groups of unrelated people; we are now networked together as a global society. More technological advancements are allowing for more of a connection across physical space.
And these technological revolutions do not just involve telecommunication; it doesn’t just stop there. In addition to interacting with faraway people over the telephone or internet, modern advancements have also allowed people to come to interact through migrating and integrating into supercities.
Groundbreaking modernizations have increased city sizes and the concentration of more people in smaller areas. It is estimated that by the year 2030, two-thirds of the world’s population will live in urban areas, consistent with the current trend of urbanization. This pattern has given rise to metropolitan areas—areas that are urban in nature but also involve the surrounding suburban zones for employment and commerce. Even the non-urban areas are being pulled into dependence on larger cities.
In 2005, the Urban Land Institute discovered that only 10 megalopolitan areas in the U.S. housed 68 percent of the country’s population. This figure is outdone in other parts of the world as well, with the largest metropolitan areas in Asia. The region from Hong Kong to Guangzhou alone held a stunning 60 million people in 2010. With this integration into busier societies, humans have become closer in physical distance. None of this would have been possible without the development of transportation. Connections like highways and trains physically link our people together in cities and states; however, the power of modern communication allows us to link to one another worldwide.
Not only do we communicate around the world because of the ability to do so, but also because of the need to do so. We link communication infrastructures in extensive grids because we have valuable information and offers to transmit. Jobs, for example, are the main source of urban growth and call over workers and professionals from all over the world to congregate. Large cities have brought in cars from Germany, imported clothing from Italy, and even hired specialists from the Asian continent to cook authentic Asian food. The average consumer likes the connection we have with outsiders and the interesting perks this relationship brings us.
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As these offers to work in metropolitan areas increase in number, more immigration consequently takes place. Multi-ethnic cities begin to spring up, and the world’s diverse cultures begin to associate with other cultures. We interact with one another more, we understand one another better, and we further eliminate the distance gap that kept us divided. The major benefits of this connection include more opportunity, more diversity, and a thriving market with unique products and services.
The bringing together of these factors allows more cooperation to happen; higher-quality products and services are discovered for cheaper prices, and countries can communicate more efficiently, dividing the work of making products (such as specializing in a certain item for many other companies to buy), and more interesting forms of music and entertainment can easily be shared with members of other nations. This is the power of more accessible, broad communication; innovation happens.
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Does It Matter if Your Partner Speaks Your Love Language? Now comes an important question: Does the ability to telecommunicate replace the physical connections we have with other geographically close areas? Those involved in social movements—which include changes in wealth, power, and innovation—prefer to see the world in its space of flows context (recognizing that we are technologically connected across the world). On the other hand, a higher population—concerned about culture and social relationships—chooses to see connections in a space of places context (recognizing that we are connected through geographical proximity). Either way, these two means of interpersonal connections have been influenced by technology and will no doubt be improved upon in the years ahead.