Old paradigms for human interaction: Global vs. Local interaction
For local interaction within a tribal village, distance and time are more managable barriers. One may have to walk to the next room, or to a banquet structure across the village to interact with a person from the same tribe. Prolonged interactions and relationships with people locally in the same tribe were obviously more practical and maintainable than a relationship with someone in a tribe across the globe.
In the local interaction model, norms were homogeneous within the same tribe and local law enforceable. Tribe members were responsible for their own actions within the community or faced punishment through local law or exile. Village Elders guided the younger generation, and the village could protect the weak and innocent. Children raised within this local structure learned from and emulated others with like values.
By nature, tribes across the globe differ in norms. Battles over lower level Maslovian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs ) resources can more easily occur between tribes that can not communicate with each other due to physical or language barriers. Factors such as fear of the unknown and dehumanization of foreign tribes are more possible. During global interaction, a visitor from a different tribe is treated at first with suspicion. What does this person want? To threaten and take resources? To come in peace to trade for resources? Travel by plane and other faster means of bridging time and distance have only recently created tourist industries, where large numbers of villagers travel and visit other tribes frequently to enjoy other cultures. Tribal differences in norms in these cases created hostility or fostered traditions of hospitality.
In cases of hostility, interaction could become fierce and breed warring for purposes of survival or domination. In these cases, natural barriers such as mountain ranges or deserts provided pockets of isolation and protection of peaceful tribes from warrior tribes.
For these reasons, governing on a global scale has always been difficult and improbable. As long as other tribes have Maslovian needs that are physiological and safety based, competition for resources for survival will always be an issue.
Global Interaction Pyramid and the Maslovian Hierarchy of needs
Needs vs. Interaction: Inverting Maslow's pyramid
In order to define the Global Village space and discuss and examine new human interaction paradigms, let's take a closer look at Maslow's Hierarchy of needs.
The first step is to invert the pyramid, while keeping the Hierarchy of Needs the same (we'll talk more about what the inversion means later). Maslow defines the lowest level, or most basic needs as Physiological. These are physical needs humans need to survive, such as food or water.
The next level, shown in light brown, is the human need for safety. Safety can encompass many issues, however, for our purposes we will address physical safety needs, such as the need for shelter and the need to feel physically safe from harm from others.
The yellow level is defined as the need for Belonging or Love. This level passes from the physical world to encompass non-physical needs, or needs of the heart, mind and spirit. Psychologists have long observed that, even though the need to survive with food, water and safety are strong; the need for Love and Belonging can often supersede these basic survival needs.
The green level is the Self Esteem and Esteem for Others level. Once an individual has fulfilled the first three levels, they are ready to trust themselves and come to respect others.
The blue level is the Self-Actualization level and the highest level, where the individual is separated from himself in heart, mind and spirit and begins to search for truths and intellectual pursuits; to live life without fear and strive for the common good.
The two lower levels, as we previously listed, are in the realm of the Physical, or Body.
The three highest levels, shown here in yellow, green and blue, are in the realm of the non-Physical, or mind, heart and spirit. Because these three highest levels are non-physical in nature, they naturally transcend boundaries of time and space. (You can project warm and loving thoughts to someone across the globe effortlessly just by thinking them, but it takes a lot more time and effort to send a ham sandwich or a bottle of water!)
Human beings instinctively know about interaction with others on the three highest levels, yet we sometimes can not quantify and may not specifically focus on analyzing intangible thoughts, feelings and emotions. This nowhere, everywhere quality of non-Physical human interconnection is the Global Village space.
Quantifying the human motivation to Interact
Maslow had defined the needs pyramid as large at the base to indicate a strong foundation, building up to the apex or ideal of Self-Actualization. We would like to use Maslow's pyramid as a sort of Needs vs. Interaction model, where humans are most willing to interact on the blue level, and least willing to interact on physical levels.
This flips the pyramid, making it wider at the top, indicating an increased willingness to interact, and small at the bottom, indicating a decreased willingness to interact.
As we listed in our first section examining old paradigms for human interaction, villages that are in need of food and water will tend to fight and struggle over resources. This causes tribes with ample resources to isolate themselves from outsiders and avoid interaction. Tribes that are peace-loving will put up physical barriers, or live in remote areas that are difficult to traverse or access, like high in the mountains, or isolated on islands in order to feel safe.
As the next illustration shows, villages that have only the first two levels of needs fulfilled have a low motivation to globally interact. This is consistent with the old paradigms of local and global interaction:
Physical Global Interaction -- illustrating a low willingness to interact.
New paradigms for Global and Local interaction: the Global Village
Once a village is able to address basic needs for its inhabitants, interaction on a global scale can transcend competition and enter into a space of unlimited interaction and collaboration. This is the Global Village space.
Maslow's three highest levels of needs are non-physical in nature and therefore encourage a high level of interaction. (There is nothing physical keeping me from sending good thoughts, feelings and emotions to someone else, and even all humans in general into this ideal space.).
However, even if tribe-to-tribe interaction is positive in nature, the factors of distance and time were still barriers to effective interaction. Using the old paradigm of global tribe-to-tribe interaction, tribe members would still have to physically travel in order to express these thoughts and feelings face-to-face.
New paradigms for global interaction
Enter telecommunications networks and eventually the use of these networks by the internet.
The internet bridges the time-distance gap and allows access to the Global Village. The Global Village is a virtual space where anyone with access can interact on a global level, regardless of locality. Types of portals into this space include computers with telecom access and cell phones with satellite communication access. Portal-to-portal interaction acts as a type of time travel where, regardless of location on the globe, time to interaction is as fast as walking to the next room or hut.
In the Global Village, global interaction follows the *same* paradigm as local interaction. Relationships between tribe members across the globe are now a practical reality and maintainable on a daily and long-term basis.
Beyond the ideals of sending good thoughts and feelings into this space; voice and visual interaction, communication through facial expression, and the spoken and written word, can be used to interact on all three Maslovian levels.
New paradigms for interaction in the Global Village are constantly emerging from the internet's inherent creative and collaboration dynamic.
One-to-one models include text chat, email, voice chat and video chat. One-to-many models include blogs and web pages. Many-to-many models include wikis, user groups, P2P applications and social networks like MySpace and YouTube.
We are interested, in particular, in how these new paradigms for interaction in the Global Village affect children and teens.
Once a tribe member accesses the Global Village, local physical methods of creating protection barriers to protect and guide younger members are no longer effective; because the engagement, although visual and audio in nature, is independent of the body’s physical location. For this reason, interactions are difficult to monitor and control. Norms and laws inherent to the local village no longer apply. Tribal elders no longer have the means of monitoring and controlling exposure to disparate norms and values, and enforcement of youth behavior consistent to local village norms is difficult.
If Net Neutrality succeeds and the Internet remains an open frontier with limitless connection, person-to-person interconnectedness will continue to transcend the boundaries of time and space. We assert that as Global Village Elders and members, we have a world responsibility to not only be aware of and participate in the Global Village culture, but specifically we must monitor and guide children and teens and all related interactions at the same level that we do in the real world.
(http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/ptc/Example:_U.S._teen_networking._New_virtual_village_venues_where_elders_have_no_impact)
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