The transition of global networks – Friendship

Our life is all about the social network. People are easy to get connect with different people through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram…etc. Friendship is more easy to maintain, even they are in a different country. When the UK boy wants to share some exciting news with his Hong Kong friend, he can use WhatsApp or Facetime to send a real-time message anytime anywhere through global networks.

Let’s throwback to the old days. People mostly communicate face-to-face. After the telegraph came to their life, “Telegraph Messenger Boy” became a way to send the message from a far distance. The messenger boy needs to wait for the customer to ring the telegraph office before they pick up a handwritten message from the customer and hand the notes to the office to send electrically to its destination. The boys send the message by their bike and their life. It may be dangerous for them to cycling for a long time in the urban traffic. Even though it is a one sentence message, it still contains risks and amount of time. Compare to nowadays, we can send the message to our friend in minutes.

Also, through the global network, we are no longer to meet friends only from our living place or workplace. We can meet friends on the Internet all over the world. It improves people social connection.

The rise of global information networks have pros and cons but it did have a great change in time and space. People can get the messages in real-time and worldwide.

–  Tammy

 

Reference:

1. Greg Downey (1999) Information Networks and Urban Spaces:
   The Case of the Telegraph Messenger Boy
   http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.112.2656&rep=rep1&type=pdf