Week 8: Wireless Response
(Prompt 2):
Yes, unplugging does make a difference. Castells argues in his chapter on “The Space of Flows, Timeless Time, and Mobile Networks,” the mobility of wireless technology is causing major shifts in the way people view (and use) space and time. As Castells states, “the availability of wireless communication makes it possible to saturate time with social practice” (174). Now that communication is a possibility regardless of location, people are staying connected almost constantly, making use of every spare moment to call, text, or otherwise communicate with others. Rheingold also addresses the impact of wireless technology in his discussion of “Smart Mobs: The Power of the Mobile Many.” The seemingly spontaneous interaction of thousands (or even millions) of people that Rheingold describes in the 2001 Phillipine protest and other such incidents would not be possible without mobile technology. The mobility (wirelessness) of the technology was what enabled people to communicate easily across barriers of time and space, and to maintain that communication as they travelled from their respective locations to converge upon a common location. As Rheingold states, mobile technology enables users to maintain a “sphere of connectivity” which was not possible within the restrictions of wired communication (171).
–C. Crawford
