Are We Losing Our Sense of Place?

The current generation is living in a period of ecocultural collapse. The complication and the assortment of culture and ecology are being eroded by the massive forces of modernity, universal developments, and climate change. People are now in the position of native societies who have a lived experience of the despair of their shared sense of place and culture. Due to the change in climate and the ecosystem, the earth, a place where people should feel at home, has now become unknown to the people living in it (Vanclay, Matthew Higgins, and Adam Blackshaw, 331). Despite the measure and supremacy of these transformations to the earth at all rules, the human lacks the concepts to understand the positive and the negative scopes of the current situation. Due to the development of technology, most Americans have become agitated people that are always on the move inside a swift pace of life. The nation has turned to a society of strangers who lacks anchorage in a particular place and is disconnected from the community. The sense of place can be defined as a unique collection of visual, cultural, and environmental qualities and characteristics that give meaning to a location. It makes one geographical area different from the other and also makes the physical surrounding of human worth caring about. The paper shall discuss the positive and the negative impacts of technology to answer the question, 'are we losing our sense of place?'

Most seniors in the current generation seem to remember a specific place from their past. It might be a place of refuge as a child, sites of a family vacation, or their grandparent's farm which they used to share with a special someone at a particular time. Many people would admit that they have a favorite place where they used to gather with friends, spend some quality time alone, or spend some leisure time (Bogart, Barbara, and Thomas, 138). However, the literature about the identification with the place has prospered in the last few decades. The sense of place that existed among those who lived in the early 20th century seems to diminish with the modernization of the current world.

Since the development of technology which has shown significant advancements recently, human beings have developed a massive network of numerous bridges and overpasses that have become anonymous passages for anonymous people to go to unknown places. This type of mobility attempts to make all locations look the same. Richard Weaver notes that the ability of a human to travel anywhere at any time using the anonymous passages has reduced the separateness of places that were previously seen as different due to their segregation, discretion, and their distinctiveness.

The electronic networks have contributed to this obliteration of place to a point where people are not worried that they are being implanted into what has been so appropriately called the lonely and virtual community. In this society of network, individuals can work, live and communicate anywhere at any time (Stoltman, Joseph, 138). Previously, a public place like the city park, or an airport used to be public places. But in the current world, these public places are no longer a shared place but a social collection of people. A mobile device binds each person to the other persons and places that the device serves as an entryway. Such public places have become obsolete and are no longer considered as interesting sites, others now form a background for researches, while others remain unchanged and their presence is felt in the current debate.

However, other than the perceived loss of meaning of some places and culture, there are a lot of benefits that come along with the advancement of technology proving that we are gaining more sense of nature than it used to be before (Shapiro, Michael, 118). The use of digital maps has literary placed human being at the center of the world, but the question remains, are we in the risk of losing our sense of the city as a whole?

In the changing world, maps are changing; the perception of the city is changing, and the way that people interact and navigate with the streets, roads, parks, and hills is going through a seismic change. This is not as a result of a change in landscape, but because of the little gadgets in our pockets, a smartphone. According to Mike Duggan, a researcher in Cultural Geography at Royal Holloway, Citymapper and Google map apps even out machines. In his research, Dugan investigated how digital technologies are changing people's experience of usual places. One of the most important things he discovered is that the new technologies continue to even out the machines used by billions of people to navigate every day in the cities. Most importantly about mobile technologies is that they offer a wide range of services at one place, the palm of your hand. Therefore, due to this revolution, individuals need not go very far in search of information; they reach for their pockets which has made life easier (Convery, Ian, 334).

Similarly, people are using mobile technology to find places to eat and drink, for entertainment, and other functions that are enabled by these gadgets. Technologies facilitate peoples contact with others over great distances. However, they also make the messages more superficial by increasing their size, briefness, and the swiftness of conveyance. Instant connectivity enhanced by the technologies, supplement to personal relationships. Consequently, it can make them distanced between each other when the connection is hidden behind a screen or in a short message. Therefore, the present danger of technologies is the ability to replace the face-to-face and the sense of a community that makes a place an essential part of human life.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the paper affirms that the impacts of technological developments in the current world can be both positive and negative in some dimensions. In the early 20th century, the error of conservation, memories were made by traveling to different places for leisure and entertainment. However, due to the development of technology since the middle and late 20th century through the 21st century, Mobile technologies have taken the place of adventure through the provision of apps and services that reduce much traveling. Though technology has seen the sense of place getting lost, it has been the root of human life in the 21st-century generation. It is understandable that the "gadget" generation would choose technology over the place due to the benefits acquired from it. Although the home is essential to life, technology is also essential; we need to establish ways to bring these two factors to a common denominator, where one would not overrule the other.

Works Cited

Bogart, Barbara A, and Thomas J. Schlereth. Sense of Place: American Regional Cultures. Lexington, Ky: University Press of Kentucky, 2015. pp138: Internet resource.

Convery, Ian. Making Sense of Place: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2014: 334. Print.

Shapiro, Michael. A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers Talk about Their Craft, Lives, and Inspiration. San Francisco: Travelers' Tales, 2004: pp118.Internet resource.

Stoltman, Joseph P. 21st Century Geography: A Reference Handbook. Thousand Oaks, Calif. : SAGE Publications Inc, 2012. pp138: Internet resource.

Vanclay, F M, Matthew Higgins, and Adam Blackshaw. Making Sense of Place: Exploring Concepts and Expressions of Place through Different Senses and Lenses. Canberra: National Museum of Australia Press, 2008: 331. Print.