Space reading response

The concept of a ‘space of flows’/ sphere of the net is really interesting to me and increasingly relevant. The net ‘refers to material time-sharing activities that are no longer bound to a particular place’. In an age where our interaction with each other is becoming more and more based in the virtual world, it is interesting to see this phenomena from an academic point of view. The concept of the virtual world as an actual space is quietly refreshing. When my parents were my age, meeting new people had to take place in the real world. Now, with the boom of social media and the death of the house party, almost everyone I meet, I do so in a net space.

 I would be interested to know how these theories of space could be applied to an older generation; my parents don’t accept facebook messenger or texting as real communication, even skype is a push. Has growing up with a concept of these online devices and their potential for communication made my generation more open to the idea of interacting in a net space, leaving my parent’s generation to constrict social activity to a space of flows?

Soja’s argument of three spaces really resonates with me. After moving out of my childhood home and into a house in the same town, I often find myself driving past my old address. I could apply Soja’s idea of first space to the house itself, the walls and ceilings and garden. Soja’s idea of second space can be applied to what the house meant to me, the things which made it my house, the paintings and memories I made within. I could apply Soja’s argument of third space to the house now, acknowledging that I see its first space, remember its second, and know that they can exist without the other. Although the house is the same physically as it was when I lived there, it’s meaning has changed.