Splintered Space: Hybrid Spaces and Differential Mobility

Abstract

Early theories of the internet imagined that individuals would begin living most of their lives online, decreasing the importance of physical mobility and urban spaces. With the development of internet-enabled mobile phones, these early predictions have been proven false. The internet has not decreased the importance of physical mobility; instead, the digital information of the internet has begun to merge with physical space, leading to new types of hybrid spaces. These hybrid spaces are becoming increasingly common, and they may change the way physical space is negotiated and understood. At this early juncture, however, it is crucial to critically examine the development of hybrid spaces and how they may lead to issues of exclusion and exacerbate issues of access. This essay takes a critical approach to the development of hybrid spaces, arguing that what is often lost in discourses about these new understandings of space are questions of who gets to experience this convergence of the digital and the physical.

Key words:

• Mobile technologies
• hybrid space
• smartphones
• mobility
• access

Notes

1. There is a certain ideological bent to some writings on travel time. For many people, of course, travel time is not lost just because it is ‘unproductive’ in the economic or social sense. The time may be spent lost in thought, talking to strangers, or sleeping. Some individuals consciously choose not to fill their travel time with media use, just as many people will choose not to purchase smartphones.