In his 1964 book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Canadian researcher Marshall McLuhan described the emergence of a “global village”. He did not claim that this village would be a peaceful utopia. In fact, he understood the village to be an inherently tribal, mistrustful, vicious and violent place (Carr, 2017). Internet use has increased sevenfold in the 15 years between 2000 and 2015 and continued growth seems beyond doubt (Davidson, 2016). From a social psychological perspective it seems very important for us to understand how our increasingly interconnected world will impact the behaviours, attitudes and identities of its global citizens. In addition to this growing online interconnectedness, the migration of people around the world has also increased a lot in recent years.

Do you think the growing interconnectedness made possible by the internet will result in greater understanding and improved conict resolution—or do you think we will see increasing conict and violence as we are drawn closer together in McLuhan’s global village?