While most people realize that location often does not matter with the internet, those who have experienced living overseas both pre-internet days and now can appreciate this fact the most. From work and play to keeping in touch with friends and family, the changes in lifestyle made possible by the internet for expatriates is much greater than for most other people. These effects may eventually have a wider impact on were people live in the world and how they interact with those around them.
Before the internet, those moving overseas had to make much greater changes to their lifestyles than they do at present, and a good example of this is keeping up with family and friends.
Someone living in another country no longer has to rely on expensive international telephone calls or on letters that could take a week or more. Now, with the internet, calls cost little to nothing, mail is instant and it is even easy to have free video conversations. Loved ones living on different continents can easily update each other about events in their lives with homepages, videos and pictures posted online that can be accessed anywhere in the world.
Living overseas once forced a huge change in what papers, magazines, books and other information one could access. Now, with most printed information available online and books available for easy download onto book readers, it is possible to live overseas and read what was available back home just as timely and cheaply overseas.
The internet has made many forms of entertainment easily accessible worldwide. For example, online video, podcasts and radio know no boundaries. Songs can be downloaded wherever there is an internet connection. One can play online games with the same friends from any location.
Even when things like movies and TV are not legally available, they are often easily accessible through file sharing services for those willing to skirt the law.
Increasingly, the same business and education options are available while abroad. While obvious limitations remain, internet-based business and courses can often be carried out from just as well from Tahiti as they can from Butte, Montana.
Of course, in spite of the internet and an increasingly integrated world, there still are significant differences between cultures and lifestyles of countries. Also, shipping costs, government regulations, and other factors still mean moving overseas brings a big change in what one can access. However, the internet has certainly decreased the number of lifestyle changes that once came with moving to another country.
What will this mean for society at large? While nobody can say for sure, it is pretty safe to say that the conveniences the internet brings to those living outside their home countries are likely to increase the number of people doing so.
What exactly this will entail for the world at large is more difficult to say. Hopefully, it will lead to more cross-cultural contact; but there is the danger people will remain isolated in their own cultural bubbles even when abroad. People sometimes need to be pushed to really learn new cultures and languages. There is much less incentive to do this when they can keep the same social contacts as well as entertainment and other options while living abroad.
Only time will what the end result will be. However, the internet clearly has made living overseas a very different experience from what it once was.
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