The invention of a common, universally defined and quantified time allowed people to ignore spacial divides and disconnect time from individual spaces. Universal time makes space significantly less of a barrier. It doesn’t make it irrelevant (or we wouldn’t have Facebook location posts, Instagram’s photo map or Find My Friends) but it makes it less of a conceptual barrier. We can coordinate much more easily when we don’t have to first spend effort to ensure that we’ll be on time. For railroads, this meant safe and convenient travel. For our society today, this means that I can think about and talk to my friends in London or Israel or Seattle or Pakistan without violating our sense of time and schedule or making a huge investment of effort.
    Technology enables us to physically move and create space, but it also removes space’s role as a barrier. When we build a bridge today, technology makes it faster and more reliable than it once would have been. This means a greater change in space, and a greater impact on people. However, the same bridge negates the spatial effect of the river it spans. Even modern communication technology has these effects. It allows us to coordinate projects that change space more rapidly and profoundly than ever before, while also making these projects less of a priority. Why build and maintain a bridge to cross a river when you can build cell towers on either side?