Living digitally, where you work, attend class, socialize, and shop online had increasingly become the norm well before the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic sped up change that will likely be permanent.
Although some employers strive to get workers to return to onsite work, many workers have refused this demand. For workers who can successfully work from home, for students who prefer to attend classes online, and for professionals of various stripes whose business model depends on providing services online, digital is their home base.
How living digitally affects people’s sense of place and their place in both digital and physical environments remains to be seen. I began this blog as a student to explore the interface and parallels between the digital world and the real world — between the digital structures that people use, work, and, arguably, occupy in their daily lives and the built structures that people use and occupy.
I would argue that the places where people live help define them — that they are, in fact, a component of their personal identity. People say as much when they introduce themselves: “I’m a New Yorker”; “I’m a Philly girl”; “I’m a burqueño.”
When anyone in the world can be present online from anywhere in the world, location gets lost. People can become fish out of water. How location affects individuals in their business, academics, and personal lives is worth exploring. So, too, are how both the digital landscape and the built environment evolve, how they affect each other, and how they affect individuals and society at large.
Interested? Read on.