This first map was taken from a blog called bikingborders.files.wordpress.com. This map is used to often illustrate the increasing interconnectedness of the globalizing world through the depiction of “friendships” between users on Facebook. The blue arc lines on the map show the connection between users in different real-world locations. Just by looking at the lines, several interesting observations can be made about the world. First, many of the interconnecting lines are often between users living within the same political borders. Another interesting conclusion that can be made with this map is that there are many parts of the world that appear dark on this map, suggesting that not all parts of the world are “connected” to the globalizing world. However, considering that this map is limited to Facebook users, it could be that some regions have a different popular social networking site and thus, appear darker in color.
On the subject of social media, this second map depicts the different types of social networking sites that are popular in countries around the world. This map was taken from another blog called reface.me and its data is very recent from February 2011. The map is color-coded to depict the dominating social networking sites. Facebook is shaded as a dark blue color, Orkut as pink, VKontakte as light blue, QZone as red, Cloob as green and Mixi as yellow. From a quick glance at the map, it is clear that Facebook is dominating most of the world with its dark blue hue. Other countries, such as Russia and China, have their own unique social networking sites, Vkontakte and QZone respectively, which are popular in their countries. This map could explain some of the dark gaps, particularly in Russia and Brazil, that stand out on the previous map of Facebook users.
This last map was taken from NASA’s website, science.nasa.gov, and it shows the nighttime lights of the world. This is often used to illustrate the extent of urbanization around the world and where human populations are concentrated at. Interestingly, this map has a startling resemblance to the first one, suggesting a connection between Facebook users and areas of urban development. Additionally, I recently used this map to determine the significance of the urban heat island effect on global warming by comparing this with a map of global surface temperature anomaly. Interestingly, the areas of temperature anomaly are found in regions with little to no nighttime light, suggesting an insignificant impact of urban heat island on global warming trends.
Khan's Compass 