Digital environment and well-being during and post-pandemic era.

Abstract

This study examines the paths that virtual forest bathing in digital space can take in fostering subjective health awareness. During the lockdown period, we shared experiences of interaction in digital space and engaged with nature in virtual space more actively than ever before. This recent phenomenon, unexpectedly revealed by the lockdown, suggests that the impact of our engagement with nature in digital space on our physical and mental health is worth a renewed discussion. An unprecedented experience, the Covid-19 pandemic posed significant economic, environmental, and social challenges. Although there has been a partial resumption of pre-pandemic activities and a steady transition to normalcy, citizens and consumers remain under its influence. The pandemic has limited social interactions and changed the way citizens interact with other citizens, economic consumer goods, and their health; fear of Covid-19 infection, the way they interact with others, increased use of digital applications for communication, remote purchasing behavior, increased home delivery, and a shift to telecommuting have all contributed to the physical reorganizing the way citizens personally experience and interact on the landscape. Public interventions, institutions, and health-related businesses to improve the health of citizens now and in the future must take into account how citizens have changed their preferences and behaviors and realign their policy frameworks and strategies. Despite the negative impact of the pandemic, a more optimistic view is that the Covid-19 pandemic will, in the long run, stimulate health awareness among people in the post-pandemic period. It will also accelerate the realization of social responsibility in business and other economic activities and will accelerate CSR-related developments. Environmental health and climate change issues are priorities that businesses and global citizens must actively address, and we can expect to see increasing demands for forest conservation and environmentally friendly behavior. As we enter an era of symbiosis with COVID-19, academia is also becoming increasingly interested in how various approaches, activities, innovations, and strategies can be developed to have a positive impact on the environment and society. With these issues in mind, this study applies structural equation modeling methods to survey data to quantitatively examine how activities in digital spaces and digital forest bathing affect our behavior change and what possibilities and prospects they suggest.