I talked last year about personal space and how the social rules for keeping your distance carry over into virtual worlds.But this image of a Japanese wave pool, and the related YouTube video, graphically show the variations in social rules in different cultures. The idea of choosing to be in a pool with that many people is highly disturbing to my English notions of necessary personal space.
With the Internet being such a cosmopolitan place, I wonder how much these cultural variations in social rules affect us. It's not something I've noticed clearly, although I have certainly noticed that online the rule tends to be "tolerate difference, or go make a niche"
Image: © kilian-nakamura.com, used with permission.
