It is a natural human tendency to feel that as the size of a community increases, the quantity, quality, and significance of the relationships between members of that community become diluted — essentially, traditionalists fear that a community can outgrow itself. When in such a mindset it is easy to take a step further and conclude that this “communal divergence” is exacerbated by the advancement of technology. Just as the physical growth of a community increases the local population, new technologies such as telephones, satellites, and the Internet transmute “local” into “global”. The key behind disarming this fallacious train of thought is so simple as to be easily missed — while the addition of a globally-reachable community may appear to dilute local communal bonds, the inverse is in fact true. As technology enables people to reach out, it also allows others to reach in. Whether the intentions are that of education, friendship, religion, or just relaxation, this additional human interaction only strengthens the individual, and that which strengthens the individual strengthens the community.
Tags: smallish post
March 7, 2011 at 9:01 pm |
The effect of the global community reaching in may not strengthen individual human interaction enough to offset the effect of the local community reaching out. Emptying a cup of warm water into the ocean will cool the original water more than it will warm the ocean up.