The Great Fake Debates: Is the world a smaller place?

Big Technology, Tiny World
by M. A. Cornejo

Of all the places I have called home through the years, my first apartment was by far the most interesting. The simple combination of thin walls, narrow courtyards, one laundry room for 250 units, and the mere fact it was filled with the type of people living in the Paradise neighborhood of Las Vegas taught as much about the world as I have ever learned before or since. I always knew what the lady upstairs was cooking, as the odors would emanate through my ceiling. I could tell when the young couple across the way were both home from work, because it’s hard to avoid the loud, passionate screams and moans — from both of them — as they enjoyed the other’s company. And as for my next-door neighborhood, there was plenty of evidence seeping into my simple one-bedroom apartment to alert me when his dealer had came through. Add in the fact I not only knew when just about everyone around me was upset, but I could tell you exactly what they were upset about as their anger spilled out in boisterous tones for the world to hear.
Yes, 2006 was an eventful year for all those residing near me. When I moved out that November, I was extremely happy to be away from the never-ending sensory barrage. A few years later, thanks to Facebook, Twitter, blog posts, streaming video, and the like, I was tossed back into the life I had one thought I had escaped from for good. Thanks to the recent technological advances, I now know that a person who I attended a few classes with in high school, “is about to hit the gym.” Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely love to get up-to-the-hour information on the guy who I barely spent any time with from my fraternity when we lived 20-feet from each other — let alone his ex-girlfriend.
Am I happy about these new trends in our society? Obviously, from my pervious statements in this piece, you know there is a lot I dislike. However, without these advancements, I would have lost touch with many of the people I had once called my closest friends. There are people who I met in San Jose, who grew up in the South, and now live in the Mid-West or on the East Coast I have access to in a way I never thought possible. It is amazing how I can see wedding pictures of people I was sure I would have lost contact to years ago, whether we still talk or not.
It’s truly an amazing feat of humanity I can see places and people through a computer screen — or even on an iPod — I would never have had the fortune to witness if not for the technology that has turned the world into one, gigantic small town. I think of someone like my grandfather, who had only the writings of the famed travel essayists of his youth to describe cities like Vienna and Prague, or grand experiences such as walking the Great Wall. Sure, the Internet cannot replace those experiences entirely, but there is nothing one could see up close at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe I cannot by typing those words into Google. The world is, without a doubt, a far smaller world than anyone could have imagined just 30 years ago. Our lives, whether we consciously decide to or are simply forced to by picture-happy Facebook friends, are on display for the whole of humanity to behold. Where once you had to be transcendent in literature, sports, film, science, religion, or politics to be known throughout the world, you must only process a cursory knowledge of technology and an IP address today.