Connections: Spatial Interaction

The farther away someone is from another, the less likely the two are to interact. Contact diminishes with increasing distance and eventually disappears. This trailing-off phenomenon is called distance decay. In the contemporary world, distance decay is much less severe because connection between places takes much less time. Geographers apply the term space–time compression to describe the reduction in the time it takes for something to reach another place

Space-Time Compression

Transportation improvements have shrunk the world. In 1492, Christopher Columbus took nearly 900 hours (37 days) to sail across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh was the first to fly nonstop across the Atlantic, taking 33.5 hours. In 1962, John Glenn, the first American to orbit in space, crossed above the Atlantic in about 1/2 hour and circled the globe three times in 5 hours.

Networks

Interaction takes place through a network, which is a chain of communication that connects places. A major airline, for example, typically has a network known as “hub-and-spokes”. With a hub-and-spokes network, an airline flies planes from a large number of places into one hub airport within a short period of time and then a short time later sends the planes to another set of places. In principle, travelers originating in relatively small towns can reach a wide variety of destinations by changing planes at the hub airport.

Spatial Interaction: Airline Hub-And-Spoke Network

WOW Air flies planes from a large number of places into a hub airport at Reykjavik, Iceland, and a short time later sends the planes to another set of places.

In the past, most connections among cultural groups required the physical movement of settlers, explorers, and plunderers from one location to another. As recently as 1800 C.E., people traveled in the same ways and at about the same speeds as in 1800 B.C.E.—they were carried by an animal, took a sailboat, or walked.

To be connected with another place in the modern world, we may not need to travel at all. Ideas that originate in a hearth are now able to diffuse rapidly to other areas through communications networks. One example is the TV network (for example, BBC in the United Kingdom, CBC in Canada, NBC in the United States), which comprises a chain of stations simultaneously broadcasting to distant places the same program, such as a football game. Through a communications network, diffusion from one place to another is instantaneous in time, even if the physical distance between places—as measured in kilometers or miles—is large.

Connections & Culture

Connections between cultural groups can have several results:

• Assimilation is the process by which a group’s cultural features are altered to resemble those of another group. The cultural features of one group may come to dominate the culture of the assimilated group.

• Acculturation is the process of changes in culture that result from the meeting of two groups. Changes may be experienced by both the interacting cultural groups, but the two groups retain two distinct cultural features.

• Syncretism is the combining of elements of two groups into a new cultural feature. The two cultural groups come together to form a new culture.

Computers, tablets, and smartphones make it possible for individuals to set up their own connections through individually constructed networks such as Facebook and Twitter. At the touch of a button, we can transmit images and messages from one part of the world to our own personalized network around the world.

Modern networks make it possible for us to know more about what is happening elsewhere in the world, and space–time compression makes it possible for us to know it sooner. Distant places seem less remote and more accessible to us. With better connections between places, we are exposed to a constant barrage of cultural traits and economic initiatives from people in other regions, and perhaps we may adopt some of these cultural and economic elements. At the same time, others in the world can learn more about us, whether we like it or not.