“I spend my life travelling seeing nothing at all... air travel is only about seeing airports. Whoever in our days can afford to spend 80 days to go around the world?”
Michael Palin, 'Around the World with Michael Palin'. 1989.



The pursuit of challenging our globe’s geographical properties sounds like an antiquated concept. It's been exhausted as well: climbing the highest mountain, crossing the biggest ocean. It's all been done and we all have been there. These days you will have to do it in a clown costume, or whilst eating the world record in doughnuts, or whilst cycling backwards on a mono-cycle, playing the violin. It has the air of tomfoolery, has it not, dear Passepartout? What was mere science-fiction in 1873 – when Jules Verne's Tour du monde en 80 jours first was published – the very concept of shrinking distance and locations with the help of contemporary technology, is out of popular reflection.

We are all living in a global village. Distance is measured in mouse-clicks: it takes seconds and the tool is located literally within arm's reach. Even when we have to spring into physical action, we have cars, cheap airline travel and yes, Segways. You want to make a ‘NYLON’ (New York – London) relationship work? Just download Skype! Social media is right in front of you. With the obstacle of distance and location gone, we focused on observation and role-playing. We don't have to explore the world: we can publish ourselves and be explored by everyone on the planet. We are the place, ETA zero seconds. But we all know this. We also know that difference in the digital doesn't matter, hardly actually exists. We can all meet, share, socialise. Distance is irrelevant in social media.

Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego*?

There are two misconceptions in social media: the first relates to the notion of distance (in some cases grouped with time) being irrelevant for the exchange of information while the second refers to the internet as a communication and cultural exchange tool. If we understand distance as a remoteness or difference in any respect like in “Our philosophies are a long distance apart”, then we could think there is something beneficial and creative in the alterity that distance establishes. How close or how far we are to others qualifies not only our spatial experiences but also the potentiality of the emergence of new relations – to objects and subjects. Distance as difference encourages the new.

But I meet all those different people online, I have friends everywhere!

The internet is not everywhere on the planet (just try to get a consistent connection Greece..over 50% of websites don't even show up on the search engines). Not everyone is on Facebook. Ask the Brazilians, the Japanese, the Russians, or the Indians. Their favourite social media site is not Facebook.

If you compare internet user numbers by geographical location with the statistics of most popular social media sites used, two things become clear. First, that a large part of the world is still not part of the internet community. Second, even when looking at the social community services used (Facebook, QQ, Orkut, etc.), the internet is separated by country borders and language. It shows how atomised the world's social networks really are. In addition, large websites, like Google or Amazon, show geographical or language-tailored search results for different countries. Internet does not enforce the user to venture to new places and new people: it does not get you geographically far. Social media accounts connect people virtually; the pattern of repetition is different from physical travelling and distance becomes irrelevant.

So why are web applications not taking the benefit of physical distance to add amazement? Where is the facility or incentive to explore the unknown outside your known universe? Any exercise in geography always contributes to personal identity and social connectivity: Facebook meets Google-maps**.

Marcus Kirsch


* Carmen Sandiego
** www.project80Days.com is an experiment that tries to virtually get around the world by collecting people who live near the geographical locations you want to travel. Each new friend gives you additional travel credit to go further. Can you commune your way all around the globe? The project launched on October 2nd at 8.45 pm in London

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