The impact of social media on our perception of space and time

Social Media (further referred to as SM) creates new norms and structures in the way we interact socially, particularly in relation to space and time. They enable the formation of communities regardless of their geographic proximity and the participation in conversations by large numbers of people simultaneously. SM blur the lines between the real and cyber worlds adding a new dimension to our interactions. They combine the immediacy and permanence of communication and contextualize seemingly disparate messages. SM liquefying our perception of time and create a sense of occupying multiple spaces at ones, changing the way we understand these concepts with regards to social interaction.

Mcluhan (1964) saw that all technology could create new meaning and new environments and referred it as media. He believed that any medium is an extension of ourselves in that it enhances some aspect of our agency. For example a light bulb allows us to see better in the dark and is an extension of sight. He also claimed that the content of any medium is another medium. In this way the content of a telegraph is writing and the content of writing is speech and the content of speech is thought. In that way, new technology is not only an extension of ourselves, but of other extensions. However, any new medium goes beyond its original intended function because it changes the way we understand our environment creating new appropriations and environments. This is exemplified through SM.

SM is primarily an extension of the interactive capabilities of Web 2.0. These were designed with the promise of “democratization of information” (Barichello and Carvalho, 2013, p. 240) allowing users become broadcasters bypassing the gatekeepers of traditional media. Sites and applications (now SM) emerged as tools to make it easy for anyone to create and share content, which led to the formation of social networks. The actual content that users produce and share is a convergence of older media such as videos, photos and text. However, within the environment of SM these familiar media gain a new meaning.

A major change brought about by SM and the Internet in general is the created on a technology-mediated “all-to-all” communication model (Barichello and Carvalho, 2013). One-to-one model was enabled by the telephone and one-to-all model via the traditional media such as newspapers and television that allowed the broadcasting of information to a large number of people at the same time, yet allowed minimal feedback. Web 2.0 brought these models together. In that sense it retrieves the participatory culture of the verbal tradition e.g. sitting around a fire sharing stories. However, it allows the participation of a greater number of people, and removes the need for physical proximity to other participants. The networks we form on social media alter our perception of space and how we organise as communities – not by our geographic location but our virtual connections.

In addition to removing the distance barrier, SM creates a sense of space of its own – the cyberspace (Kweon, Hwang, and Jo, 2011). It’s not by chance that chat rooms (which precede modern SM) where referred to as such because they give participants a sense of occupying the same space, although not physically. SM platforms such as Facebook extend on this perception. On Facebook you can simultaneously interact with any number of people privately (via instant messenger) and also publically (through wall posts and comments). This gives you a sense of occupying multiple cyberspaces as well as your “real-world” space at once. Therefore our perception of space becomes layered.

Another key point is that SM does not replace our “real-world” interactions but creates a convergence of the two (Sang-Hee, Kyung-Ho and Do-Hyun, 2011). There is frequently overlap between our SM and real-world communities – we may even choose to only interact with people we know in real life). However, these interactions will not be the same but impact one another. For example, you can meet a friend you haven’t seen for a long time yet be aware about recent events in their life as you follow them on SM. You can then do a SM status update about what you have done together – this is a completely new dimension that SM adds to social interactions. The real world is embedded into SM (e.g. “checking in” at places or tagging friends in photos) and social media is embedded into our daily lives especially with the rise of mobile technology.

Social media also alters our understanding of time (Sang-Hee, Kyung-Ho and Do-Hyun, 2011). Following on from the earlier example, you couldn’t have two different private conversations at the same time in the “real world.” On SM you can. It is also more immediate than other mediated forms like email. On Facebook you can see once your instant message was read and whether the recipient is typing a response. The layered space of SM enables multitasking but also amputates some of our attention spans and concentration. SM combines the immediacy of face-to-face communication with the permanence of the written record – making our perception of time fluid.

This fluidity creates new norms around the structure of conversations. In the real world it would be socially awkward to leave part way through a conversation and just pick up where you left hours later without needing to explain or recap. On SM this is quite common as there is an unspoken understanding that you simultaneously occupy two spaces (the real and cyber) and probably multitasking. Similarly, you would be unlikely to unexpectedly announce what you had for dinner to a “real world” large audience without providing any context. However, that is exactly what happens on SM – public status updates are basically short decontextualized announcements. This is acceptable on social media because the website itself acts as the context (because medium truly is the message (McLuhan, 1964) and your updates are effectively an utterance within a conversation that you started with your entire network five years ago (or whenever you signed up to the SM).

SM changes our understanding of space and time. They help overcome the distance barrier, making geographical location irrelevant while enabling two-way conversation between a large numbers of people simultaneously. It also gives us the perception that we can occupy multiple spaces at ones and converges the real and the cyber-space – adding a new dimension to our concept of space. SM makes time seam fluid by combining immediacy the permanence of communication and itself serves as a context for our seemingly disconnected interactions, proving that the medium is the message. In these ways SM changes the way we organise as communities and how we structure our social interactions.

 

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References:
Barichello, E., and Carvalho, L. (2013). Understanding the digital social media from mcLuhan’s idea of medium-ambience. Matrizes, 7(1), pp. 235-246. Sao Paolo, Brazil.
Kweon, S.H., Hwang, K.H. and Jo, D.H. (2011). Time and Space Perception on Media Platforms. Proceedings of the Media Ecology Association, Volume 12, (pp.25-48) Retrieved from http://www.media-ecology.org/publications/MEA_proceedings/v12/8_time.pdf
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media: The extensions of man. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill