Our ‘Shrinking World’ and the Forces Driving Technological Innovation
What is meant by time space convergence?
1. Change in the perception of time and distance and virtual erosion of geographical barrier due to improvement in transport and communication technology in recent times.
2. Virtual shrinkage Physical reduction of time taken to travel between two places due to improvement and major advances in transport and communication system. This has significantly reduced the impact of geographical barriers separating countries and people.
3. It is a process made possible by technological innovation in transportation and communication by which distant places are bought together in terms of the time taken to travel or send messages between them.
4. Heightened connectivity has changed our perception of time, distance and geographical barrier to the movement of people, goods, capital and information.
5. Anti-thesis to Distance Decay model and the concept of frictional effect of distance
This perceptual change has been described as time-space convergence by Janelle in 1968 and as time-space compression by Harvey in 1990. Harvey’s View of time space compression as an opportunity for global economic empire builder (TNCs) to search for new markets and profits.
Basic definitions:
Transport systems are the means by which materials, products and people are transferred from place to place.
Communication Systems are the ways in which information is transmitted from place to place in the form of ideas, instruction, messages, opinion, views and images. Before, the development of electricity in the 19th century information could only move at the same speed of a transport system carrying it. The development of telegraph and then telephone broke this link and established a new era.
Theoretical Explanation of time-space convergence
How time-space convergence was calculated by Janelle
Janelle plotted changing travel time between Edinburgh to London (approx. 600 km) in different historical time starting from industrial revolution and found how the space time shrinkage generates the perception of feel close together effect as a two week stage coach journey between Edinburgh to London in 1958 was ultimately superseded by an air travel lasting barely 2 hours. He concluded that the two cities had converged at an average rate of 30 minutes per year over a period of 200 years.