One World Culture

I originally planned to post this theory of mine as a blog post, but then I thought, "Hey, why not generate some discussion?"

I have a theory that eventually, the entire planet will have one single culture. At least, the major powers of the world probably will within 250 years. I began this theory when I noticed a pattern evolving in American history as I studied it during school. Every time an invention that enabled communication was created, the differences in culture over distances was drastically reduced.

This shows strongly in the early 1900s. Between then and 1920, basic vehicles, telephones, and radios became commonplace items in middle-class households. At this point, the cultural boundaries by region began to dissipate. People began moving out and far away, bringing with them their ideas and ways of life to influence others. Over time, differences in culture diminished, leading towards a modern nation with a generally unified culture. While not everyone is the same, the general culture from town to town is very similar.

I believe that a similar thing is already happening through the modern internet, and it's affecting the entire planet. We've made it so that even the lower classes in most of the major power countries can access the web and share their ideals and ways of life with everyone from anywhere. This essentially removes the cultural boundaries created by distance between nations. We can see it already happening on the small scale, and the internet as we know it has only been around since August 23, 1991, when Tim Berners-Lee created the first public web pages. Since then, the world wide web has been become an increasingly important aspect of modern life, causing more and more cultural exposure across the world.

Don't believe me? Look at the "internet generation" for a moment. This generation has a tolerance for others that is unmatched by past generations, due almost entirely to the web opening people up to differing ideas and cultures from a very early age.

My theory is that sooner than later, the entire world will have an extremely similar culture due to this incredible ease of communication. Do you agree? Disagree? Whatever you think of my theory, I'd love to hear it.