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Why the World Is a Global Village

We live in a world that is constantly changing.

The way we connect with others has changed and so has the way we view the world. We are now living in a global village.

This means that there are no boundaries when it comes to communication and relationships. We can connect with anyone, anywhere in the world, at any time.

With technology becoming more advanced and social media becoming more popular, the global village is only going to continue to grow.

So what does this mean for our future? And how do we make sure that everyone benefits from this growing community? Read on to find out!

The Rise of Globalism

People are always talking about the world becoming a global village, but no one stops to explain what that even means.

We communicate quickly and across the world without physical borders. Even if you live in the United States, there’s probably someone you know who lives in another country.

As globalism spreads like wildfire, it’s easier than ever for people around the world to trade and exchange.

In the 21st century, more than ever, the world is a global village that’s interconnected.

The Concept of the Global Village

The term Global Village was coined by Marshall McLuhan in the early 1960s. Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian philosopher who studied media theory.

In the 21st century, it refers to the way various media and technologies have accelerated social interaction and cultural change around the world.

Many communicators and educators have adopted it to promote global awareness and understanding among students. The term Global Village is based on the view that the world is interconnected.

The concept of the global village has been adapted and used over the years.

Globalization has been a popular and influential development in recent decades as the pace of the international economy has accelerated and technology has enabled people to communicate across great distances.

Related: What Is the Role of Solidarity in National and Global Community Development.

The global village isn’t only an increase in electronic media, but rather a decrease in the distance that brings people closer together.

Its concept means that our rural villages are no longer separate entities, but interconnected parts of a large community where knowledge, culture, and even languages and lifestyles have merged into one.

The World Has Become a Global Village

The world has become a global village in more ways than one.

If we talk about the technological progress in the world, we can say that the world has become a global village through the World Wide Web revolution.

It’s made it possible to connect people regardless of where their geographical location.

The global village isn’t limited to just one technology but also includes social media.

Social media allows you to connect with other people regardless of their geographical location.

You can use social media platforms to interact with people around the world and discuss various topics, from politics and sports to music and movies.

It won’t be long before we feel that people in other parts of the world are our neighbors.

10 Advantages of the Global Village

1. Interconnectedness

Interconnectedness gives individuals, groups, and almost every nation the opportunity to interact and learn from each other’s experiences, knowledge, and cultures.

It also gives us the opportunity to think differently than ever before.

The possibilities are endless when we can connect with people around the world to find new ideas, new thoughts, and new solutions to problems we’re trying to solve.

Before networking, we’d rely on word of mouth or the few available means of electronic media.

Now we can check everything on the Internet instantly and get new perspectives from anyone anywhere in the world, 24/7.

2. Togetherness

Life is much more beautiful when we share our happiness with others.

When we have a loving partner who supports and cares for us, life is more meaningful and beautiful than ever before.

Removing geographical boundaries also removes language and cultural barriers that hinder communication between people around the world who live in different countries.

People can share information about their skills, hobbies, and other things they’re passionate about so that everyone can learn something new.

After everything that happened in the last century (e.g. World War II, the Cold War, etc.), we’ve realized the importance of togetherness.

Togetherness is the basis for peace and prosperity for all nations around the world. It’s what makes us truly human and distinguishes us from other species we know.

Related: What Can We Do to Make a Peaceful World

3. Job Opportunities

Nowadays, there are many job opportunities for everyone, as many job searches aren’t limited to a specific geographical area.

With the increase of cultural globalization and communication technology in the 21st century, you never have to be left behind in the fight for the best job.

You can simply log into your account on any social media platform or online job search website to see hundreds of potential jobs waiting for your resumes.

Some people even get a job by networking with the right people and not limiting themselves to a specific location or company.

The number of jobs you can get is truly unlimited if you keep your eyes and ears open and look for opportunities in your area.

As of COVID 19, you’ve even more opportunities to work from home. You could live in India and work for a company in the United States or elsewhere in North America.

4. Business Opportunities

The first advantage is that you can do everything from home, which means you can do your work from home.

You can be your own boss and also hire people to work for you from anywhere in the world.

Cultural globalization has also led to the development of newer technologies and products that have changed society for the better.

The World Wide Web is an example of a networked product that’s evolved into something much bigger than its original purpose.

The key to harnessing the power of networking is to find people who’re “connected” to you. These are people who’ve similar goals and ideas as you and who may be able to help you advance your work and your dreams.

By connecting with people around the world, you can build a network of support that will help you achieve your goals faster than if you tried to do it alone.

It also means you can reach more potential clients and business partners.

5. Diversity

When people talk about diversity, they mean differences in many areas of life. It can refer to a person’s gender, race, religion, abilities or even personality.

The concept of diversity is based on the belief that all people have the same value and potential.

In order for each individual to reach their full potential, they must be offered opportunities regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, language preference, or socioeconomic background.

Diversity can also help an organization improve its overall effectiveness by encouraging creativity and innovation through the introduction of new perspectives and ideas.

6. Cultural Awareness

Cultural awareness refers to familiarity with a variety of cultural traditions, practices, attitudes, customs, and beliefs.

Tolerance is an important component of cultural awareness. It’s not always easy to accept different cultures and ways of life that are different from our own.

Learning to tolerate differences promotes understanding and acceptance of other cultures and peoples.

Knowing how to communicate with people from other cultures will make it easier for you to move up the career ladder, especially if you’re seeking a leadership position in a multinational company.

This will give you an advantage over others who don’t have the same skills.

If you’re familiar with other cultures and how they work, you’ll be able to make friends much easier. Having friends from all over the world will make your life more interesting and fun!

7. Shared Knowledge

Shared knowledge is the sum of human knowledge and it shows in our collective intelligence.

It’s the intelligent, organized, and cumulative accumulation of all the knowledge in the world, including facts, concepts, principles, theories, and even heuristics that can be used to solve problems or create opportunities.

Shared knowledge is a basic human need.

We crave companionship and conversation, we want to be informed about the world around us, and in some cases, we need to know that our knowledge is shared by others.

A healthy society depends on it.

8. Progress

New technologies give us the opportunity to progress as individuals and as a society.

On a personal level, we gain time to progress instead of spending our time doing paperwork, for example, because we can now do everything quickly online.

We also know much more about the world and can make more informed decisions.

We’re also evolving on a societal level, as we learn more about communication technology, public health, economics, civil society, and even foreign policy.

The ability to share knowledge helps us move forward as a global society and accelerates the process of solving problems (e.g. global warming).

9. Access

Our interconnectedness with the world around us opens up new avenues of unlimited possibilities.

It also brings new challenges and opportunities. We’re connected to other people, but also to our environment (the city we live in and its various elements), to information (the Internet, books, newspapers, magazines), to opportunities (networking events), and many other things.

The sheer amount of things and concepts we’re networked with can be overwhelming at times, but it also gives us a huge range of choices.

Plus, you can find an answer to almost any question, just like you found this article, and learn something new from anyone in the world at any time.

In the past, you’d buy newspapers to get the news, and information was limited to a single newsstand, and your mail took months to get from one side of your continent to the other.

10. Global Support

There are times when you don’t want to wait for help, especially if you’re in the middle of a natural disaster and your life is on the line.

Maybe it’s how you can get something done, or you need help as soon as possible.

If your loved ones are on the other side of the world, you can quickly find out what’s going on locally.

For example, the United Nations and mass media publish immediately when an earthquake or other disaster occurs somewhere, and with the Internet, there’s more shared information than ever before.

With instantaneous sharing, you no longer have to wait to get support from the United Nations or an NGO; you can share your concern on social media immediately.

For example, a few years ago, a friend of mine in Thailand needed urgent surgery.

By instantaneous sharing on social media, many of his acquaintances and loved ones donated and he was saved.

Before the electronic communication, he’d’ve had to call everyone individually, which would have taken time and been expensive.

10 Disadvantages of the Global Village

1. Isolation

The world is changing, and faster than anyone could’ve imagined.

This pace has led to a paradox: We’re more connected than ever before, but loneliness has reached epidemic proportions in the developed world.

It’s not because we don’t have friends or family with whom to share important moments in our lives.

Rather, we’ve become slaves to communication technology, which keeps us so busy that we no longer bother to build real relationships with people.

We’re too busy with electronic communication to participate in the everyday interactions that enrich our lives and bring us joy.

And how can you be truly intimate with someone if you’re constantly looking at your phone?

Networking is meant to connect us, not disconnect us from ourselves, our fellow human beings, and most importantly, the moment.

2. Stress

Living in a global village isn’t all fun and games. It also has its drawbacks, one of which is stress.

This stress manifests itself in many ways: work stress, relationship stress, financial stress, and the fear of missing out.

Being truly part of the global village means being connected to the worldwide communication network. This makes it possible to know what’s going on anytime, anywhere. While this kind of awareness can be exciting, it can also cause stress.

When you live in a global village, you’ve almost instantaneous access to information from all over the world.

There’s no way to avoid learning that something is happening somewhere right now if you want to know.

And we all know that one more thing to consume on top of everything else can be too much for even the toughest consumer.

This leads to the constant feeling of “not being good enough” because no matter how hard you try to keep up with your own obligations, there will always be someone who’s making better use of their time or money than you.

Feeling behind can cause you to feel anxious or depressed and lose your self-confidence.

The fear of missing out is also common and causes many people to lose sleep because they’ve to constantly look at their phones to catch up on the latest on social media.

3. Lifestyle

As we become more connected online, we tend to invest more time and money in technology.

As a result, our lifestyle becomes more and more expensive.

Therefore, we sacrifice other areas such as relationships and physical health because they aren’t as “convenient.”

Another disadvantage of technology is that it can distract us.

We’ve become so addicted to social media that we care less about our loved ones.

Nowadays, kids don’t even know how to talk face-to-face because they’re constantly texting and chatting online with their friends.

Technology has made us more interested in the virtual than the real. Interactions are less profound than they used to be and less spontaneous.

It’s become so easy to cancel a meeting with friends via Messenger that many have lost the value of seeing their loved ones face to face, and the same happens when we break up with someone.

Instead of having the courage to have an honest face-to-face conversation that could be important for our personal growth, many people today choose the easy way out, which leads them to make the same mistakes over and over again.

4. Lack of Privacy

Networking has raised some concerns among users who don’t want their personal information to be published on the Internet.

One of the main features of this new hyperconnected environment is the availability of a wealth of data collected about us by various companies and their machines: what we say, who we talk to, where we go, what we buy, how much money we make, what computer games we play.

It’s not that data about our lives wasn’t available before.

There’s a difference between something that’s available and something that’s freely available for anyone to see in real-time.

This difference is important and has consequences. It’s important because access to large amounts of personal data can be abused.

5. Tourism

The biggest disadvantage of networking is that it kills the element of surprise and curiosity.

There are no more surprises as if you knew where you were traveling before you started your trip.

You’ve already done in-depth research on the destination of your trip and there are no more surprises.

You know all about your destination, depending on your traveling purposes.

Researching on the Internet has reduced the excitement and it’s no longer fun to travel.

It’s become more of a chore than excitement and fun.

Travel agencies have been replaced by online booking portals and today there are millions of websites offering information about hotels, flights, car rentals, etc.

The Internet has made everything easier and faster, but sometimes it’s also taken the fun out of it.

The element of surprise is gone and you know too much before you start your journey.

Therefore, there’s also the possibility that you don’t like something or you don’t like your journey, which leads to disappointment because you’ve idealized your destination.

6. Greed

We always think that more choice is a good thing. However, it can also be quite overwhelming. This feeling is amplified by social media, where we see peers doing exciting things and having fun.

Too many options make us feel greedy and excessive.

We want more than we need, and we don’t want to give up anything. We ask ourselves, “Why not me?” or “Why can’t I have that too?”.

When we don’t get what we want, we blame others and think they’re greedy for preventing us from getting what we want. We feel that we’re missing out on something in life if we don’t do the same.

7. Misinformation

Information travels at the speed of light. This is both a good and a bad thing.

The ability to communicate instantly with people around the world has many positive effects.

In the 21st century, spreading misinformation becomes as easy as spreading knowledge.

Searching for reliable information in this sea of noise can be daunting. Our daily lives, our work, and even our sense of identity can depend on it.

I’m not talking here about made-up news or information about things that don’t exist, like the legendary monsters that supposedly roam the jungles of Africa.

This is misinformation that’s based on fact but presented in a way that creates a false image or makes people believe something is true when it’s not.

Most of the time, this is done intentionally by those who have a specific goal or don’t adhere to the truth.

For example, in the COVID 19 era, there are so many conspiracy theories about the vaccine that people no longer see the value of scientific research. It also limits good intentions: Because of the spread of misinformation and propaganda, social media has restricted advertising for certain keywords, such as COVID 19 or climate change.

My global community, World Citizen Artists, sometimes runs solidarity campaigns to bring attention to these issues, and we do everything we can to make sure we don’t spread misinformation.

However, because we don’t have as much authority as the well-known mass media, our ads on social media are often rejected because they’re about social issues.

We can’t blame them, because, with over 4.5 billion people on the Internet, they’ve to make general rules and can’t review every post in detail, which is just a result of misinformation.

On the other hand, without today’s networking, we wouldn’t even have our global community.

8. Competitiveness for Job Seekers

One drawback is competitiveness for job seekers, businesses, and individual global citizens.

With over 4.5 billion Internet users, there are too many candidates for every job opening.

There are many reasons why hiring is becoming more complicated.

The global village, as I like to call it, is made up of people with many different backgrounds, cultures, and opinions.

The days of having a job for life are over (also because of robotization).

If you want to be successful in your job today, you’ve to be ready to constantly adapt to new circumstances, new challenges, and new ways of working, and you’ve to have a high level of education.

9. Competitiveness for Companies

Due to globalization, companies must compete with foreign companies in their home market.

For example, a company from North America has to compete with Asian companies and vice versa.

It’s quite possible that customers prefer products of foreign competitors for various reasons (price, quality, etc.). This is the main problem because it can lead to the bankruptcy of a company.

The second problem is a recession. The main cause of recession is overproduction.

Many goods are produced more than demanded.

This leads to a decrease in product prices and profits.

As a result, companies have to lay off workers, which increases the unemployment rate.

To survive in this situation, companies must restructure and find ways to reduce their production costs.

This consequence is also harmful to the environment.

10. Reduction of Awareness

The digital world of the 21st century offers us a wealth of data and a wealth of opportunities, but can we really experience it all?

Digital technology has brought many positive changes, but we run the risk of losing sight of what’s important in all the noise.

When we’re exposed to too many messages at once, our brains can only focus on a limited amount of information – this is called attention span.

To process all this information and decide which parts are important enough to keep in mind, we rely on our cognitive filters – or mental shortlists – to help us decide what’s worth our time and effort.

Our filters function like automatic sieves that prevent certain details from arriving.

The vast amount of information transmitted over electronic media has given us access to more knowledge and learning than we’ve ever experienced before.

But it’s also presented us with a paradoxical problem. For not all information is necessarily relevant or suitable for our needs.

Advantages and Disadvantages of the Global Village

If you’d asked me 20 years ago, I’d have been against certain areas of networking for some of the reasons listed above.

However, in the 21st century, we live in a very different world, and in order to solve global problems, we’ve passed the stage where we can live without them, and many of these problems can only be solved as a global village.

I personally think that, given the global problems we face today, there are more advantages than disadvantages to moving forward as a global village.

As Marshall McLuhan said “There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.”

Think “Cultural Globalization”, Understand “Local”

The world is becoming a global village where we’re all connected, from developed to developing countries.

The problem is that many people are still stuck in their local thinking and don’t understand that cultural globalization would help solve many challenges, such as global warming in developed and developing countries.

We need to take the time to understand other cultures and how they think before we make any assumptions about them.

The rule for this is “Think World”, Understand “Local” and that’s exactly what I did and was successful.

I was able to connect with all other developed and developing countries on a deeper level, which opened up many opportunities that I wouldn’t have found if I was still stuck in my local thinking.

By learning about the culture of local people, the history of their country, the strengths and challenges of their nation, I was able to build the global community of World Citizen Artists, which many members refer to as a global village, even though we’re still a small organization – because we’re diverse and global.

Building a global culture is only possible if we understand what “local” means in each country in which we operate, and if we learn to accept cultural differences.