John A. Waterworth – författare

This open access book takes a fresh look at the nature of the digital travel experience, at a time when more and more people are engaged in online social interaction, games, and other virtual experiences essentially involving online visits to other places. It examines whether these experiences can seem real to the virtual traveller and, if so, under what conditions and on what grounds. The book unpacks philosophical theories relevant to the feeling of being somewhere, emphasising the importance of perception and being-in-the-world. Notions of place are outlined, based on work in tourism studies, human geography, and other applied social fields, with an aim to investigate how and when different experiences of place arise for the traveller and how these relate to telepresence – the sense of being there in another place through digital media. Findings from recent empirical studies of digital travel are presented, including a survey from whichthe characteristics of “digital travellers” are identified. A review of selected interactive design trends and possibilities leads to the conclusion, which draws these strands together and looks to the future of this topical and expanding field.

This book identities several varieties of digital displacement, focussing on the impact of these developments on our quality of life, our sense of wellbeing. During the course of the 21st century we have seen a profound change in human behaviour and experience through the intervening and changing effects of evolving digital technologies. This development is characterised by our psychologically spending more and more of our waking lives in places other than where our bodies are physically located. Prior to these changes, personhood was tied to being in a particular body, in a particular place, at a particular time. The book examines this development and explores its ramifications for individual and social experiences, and for the sense of self, of being a person displaced into cyberspace. Because we retain our sense of being in our own body, although relocated to another place, when we feel technologically disembodied it is as if we have left our body behind, perhaps sitting in a train, a café, an armchair, or behind a familiar desk. We might be walking down a street, engaged with our mobile phone while following the stream of other pedestrians, with almost no attention devoted to our physical location. With the increased prevalence of various forms of VR, it is as if we have travelled, bodily as well as psychologically, to a different distant place, and even into a different body. This provides a unique perspective for understanding the impact and importance of technology-mediated change on our psychological and social lives.