Lab 3

My Map

View Gyms and Yoga Studios for UCLA Students in a larger map

Neogeography allows you to share your personal interpretations of the space around you. This allows for unique personalized visions of the same geographical space. These interpretations are easily reflected with the ever expanding neogeopgrahy technology. This new technology has made it both easy and entertaining to create personalized maps. Also these maps have become very engaging which makes for a great learning experience. As the space becomes more and more personalized, or more and more maps are made of the same area, the mapping begins to take on more meaning. The layers of personalized maps add a social interpretation of the geographical space and in construct these maps actually map out as much socially as they do geographically. However, this broad information source does contain some risk and poetical downfalls depending on how the information is interpreted and used.
Neogeography allows for a powerful exchange of ever enhancing personal information. As this information becomes more and more readily available the dangers associated with this exchange become more apparent. Personalized information, such as political alliance or sexual orientation, becomes readily available for a wide array of users. This combined with geographical location means that people can be poetically be targeted and located for extortion and crimes. This introduces the idea of “too much information” in that these maps can be seen as a threat to privacy and sercurity. If this problem is exaggerated to the highest level, than the picture of the infamous Big Brother begins to form. The only way to hedge yourself from this danger is controlling the amount of information you include on your map. The problem truly lies in how the information is used which, unfortunately for us, is almost impossible to control.