ABSTRACT
We have only a meagre knowledge of humans' early social interactions with others. Likewise, we know little about how these dealings increasingly began to impact upon others, as the years passed by. Yet, what is irrefutable is that this impact has burgeoned with the passage of time. In far off times, for instance, an individual's or a group's influence was usually restricted to the immediate neighbourhood. More recently, this influence has acquired a global capability, of a kind that Giddens (1990) writes about as:
the intensification of world wide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa (p. 64).
Much of this capability, or intensification, is inextricably linked to remarkable advances in transportation, and communication technologies. Even so, the effect of these advances upon individuals and cultures is not easy to assess: in recent times there have been few opportunities to observe people before, and then after, exposure to them. Thus, it is understandable that social scientists are lured to an isolated community once it gets immersed in communication and information technologies (e.g. television, the Internet, the E-mail) for the first time. Where an opportunity of this kind presents itself, an important line of inquiry would be to consider whether exposure to the 'outside world' alters the community's lifestyle, and changes its perceptions of the world outside.