Hang on - isn't it widely accepted that spatial information represents our greatest mental bandwidth, both in terms of input and in terms of memory? The ancient Greek orators' "memory palaces" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci) provide one early recognition of this mental faculty.
With the preponderance of meatspace-spatial terms used for electronic services ("room", "space", "site", "zone", "stream", "page", "locker", "file", etc.) doesn't it follow that spatial reasoning will begin to function on nonspatial environs, based upon mental conceptions?
On an interesting and related tangent I recently saw a presentation in Jarkta, Indonesia by an Arizona-based academic who analyzed the twitter words used around recent conflicts and determined a heavy spatial semantic bent:
The argument IIRC was that the general population of twitter are responding to oppression against high-level cognitive concepts such as human rights with spatially reasoned dialogue: '"The Cloud and the Ground: Political Activism in the Digital Media Age"' @ International Conference on Communication, University of Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia, 6-7 December 2012. http://merlyna.org/appearances/
Unfortunately it's not available online. Oh, the irony!
PS. After the conference I hassled the keynote speakers about the lack of a program incorporating Wikileaks and government surveillance. Furthermore, Participants needed to register with the university in order to access censored internet. Later, Creative Commons Indonesia threw a party within the US-run '@America' facility (designed to manipulate the perception of America by Indonesian muslim youth - source: NYT), a disgusting venue given that they are currently pushing TPP. I did complain to Creative Commons' ethics board.
With the preponderance of meatspace-spatial terms used for electronic services ("room", "space", "site", "zone", "stream", "page", "locker", "file", etc.) doesn't it follow that spatial reasoning will begin to function on nonspatial environs, based upon mental conceptions?
On an interesting and related tangent I recently saw a presentation in Jarkta, Indonesia by an Arizona-based academic who analyzed the twitter words used around recent conflicts and determined a heavy spatial semantic bent:
The argument IIRC was that the general population of twitter are responding to oppression against high-level cognitive concepts such as human rights with spatially reasoned dialogue: '"The Cloud and the Ground: Political Activism in the Digital Media Age"' @ International Conference on Communication, University of Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia, 6-7 December 2012. http://merlyna.org/appearances/
Unfortunately it's not available online. Oh, the irony!
PS. After the conference I hassled the keynote speakers about the lack of a program incorporating Wikileaks and government surveillance. Furthermore, Participants needed to register with the university in order to access censored internet. Later, Creative Commons Indonesia threw a party within the US-run '@America' facility (designed to manipulate the perception of America by Indonesian muslim youth - source: NYT), a disgusting venue given that they are currently pushing TPP. I did complain to Creative Commons' ethics board.