The World is Changing - Liceo Sesto Properzio

Everybody is connectedby Paula GORROCHATEGUI (1995), DSB Bilbao/SpainLast week, I read in a blog that every person in this world is connected with adistance of seven (actually 6.6) steps with each other. This means that I can pickany person of the planet (Let´s say Barack Obama) and there will be a person Iknow, who knows a person who knows a person who knows a person who knowsa person who knows a person who knows a person who knows a person whoknows a person who knows the President of the United States of America.First, I thought that was pretty cool.Then, I found it hard to believe.So I started checking if it was true. And it was. Plenty of studies say (giving examples much more serious thanmine) that the world population is more closely connected than we can imagine.I even found a Wikipedia-article. And everybody knows that everything gets serious when you find a Wikipediaarticleabout it.This is called the “Six degrees of separation”, known as “A friend of a friend” theory, and was developed by aHungarian journalist called Frigyes Karinthy in the year 1939.I found this interesting, so I kept reading and I discovered that Facebook decided to prove if this statement wastrue in the year 2009. The result was 5.73 steps. They did it again last year: the result was 4.74 steps.The world is not getting smaller (literally speaking) but the distances seem to be shrinking because ofglobalization, and, as we can see, especially because of social networks. The steps are getting smaller andsmaller by time, and the Internet plays a very big role in this.Who would have thought 20 years ago that you could be sharing pictures with someone who lives 10.000kilometers away from you? That you would be able to meet someone from another continent without actuallyseeing the face, without the need to take a plane, just by clicking on a certain window? And not only people:opinions and ideas are also connected much faster because of the Internet. Any thought, idea or opinion (withoutthe filter of quality, I must say) can be shared via Twitter, a webpage where everyone is able to create their ownnetwork just by following. There are no people who connect, just digital identities who share…let´s call it stuff.In this case, the distance between users is 4.4 steps.Thinking about a not so far away future, when the I-Babys, the ones who were born surrounded by the digitalboomare old, we can guess that almost everyone will be online. Will that mean that everyone will be connectedby one step?Seeing the rhythm in which our society is developing this is not a reckless statement.It´s only a matter of time seeing how this influences our life, and, personally, I hope we will make the best of it,so that shorter distances will mean less conflicts.posted on Friday May 25th, 2012The oldest communication way is the shipby Gabrielė MACIJAUSKAITĖ (1996), SPG Šilutė/LithuaniaThe ships we come across nowadays are large,sturdy and self-propelled vessels which are usedto transport cargo across seas and oceans. Thiswas not the case centuries ago, and the currentship has undergone countless centuries ofdevelopment to become what it is today.Already in ancient times humans tended to livenear the water because it was not only a goodplace to live but also a perfect place forcommunication. The first boat was a simpleframe of sticks lashed together and coveredexpertly with sewn hides and these boats couldcarry large and heavy loads easily. Anotherancient boat was the dugout, which is a log thatis hollowed out and pointed at the ends. Someof these were even as long as eighteen meters.Sailing vessels were used by many ancient nations: Chinese, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans. In1787 in England the first 21.5 meter-long steel ship was built and in 1807 the United States built the firststeamer.The real age of communication was the Age of Discovery – a period from the early 15th century and continuinginto the early 17th century, during which European ships travelled around the world to search for trading goodssuch as gold, silver, and spices. In the process, Europeans encountered peoples and mapped lands previouslyunknown to them and it changed people‘s attitude to the world.n° 9/2013, page 106