Digital Proxemics ─ How Technology Shapes the Ways We Move

The author investigates the relationship between digital communication and the human use of space, exploring how digital technology shapes personal bodily movement, the interpersonal negotiation of social space, and the navigation of public space and places. He considers daily interactions with spaces and technologies; the components of the study of proxemics, including human distances, territories, and lived experiences in spaces, and the cultural shifts that require consideration of proxemics for a digital society; application of these concepts to the interpersonal distancing of the body in relation to others in the context of digital gathering; how digital technologies change the physical motion of the body; the impact of digital proxemics in communities, cities, and geographic locations; how people, digital technologies, and environments create archives of place that document movements; spaces that were once forbidden but are now accessible through digital technology; spaces created in virtual environments; the role of digital literacies in understanding and contributing to lived experience with and through digital technology; and research in proxemics. Annotation c2016 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)

John A. McArthur (PhD, Clemson University) is Associate Professor in the James L. Knight School of Communication at Queens University of Charlotte. He is a researcher, author, and speaker on the role of space, technology, and user-experience in human communication.