Technobiophilia: Nature and human interactions in the digital age.

Abstract

The lockdown period during which people were restricted from leaving the house by COVID-19 greatly increased the opportunities for people around the world to interact with people and nature in virtual cyberspace. And this unprecedented experience has seen us become more active in cyberspace by the day, moving flexibly between reality and virtual space to the extent that not a day goes by when we are not in touch with nature and interacting with others in digital spaces. And we know from experience that the physical restrictions we have recently experienced with COVID have increased our engagement with nature in virtual space, which in turn has increased our attachment to nature and our concern for environmental issues. The UK author, Dr Sue Thomas, presented the concept of 'techno-biophilia' in 2013, which has the potential to become an important guiding principle in global environmental protection and urban development. This viewpoint paper adds a discussion of the possibilities and prospects of the concept of techno-biophilia from the perspective of human interaction with nature. Rather than viewing digital and real space as opposites, it considers the implications of studying the effects of human-nature interactions in a 21st century space where the real and virtual merge in a new humanistic frame of reference and contributes to further stimulating debate.