Rise of the Internet—Navigating Our Online and Place-Based Ecologies

This chapter traces the Rise of the Internet and the dramatic changes in human communities wrought by digital information and communication technologies. It describes several facets of the cybersphere , a rapidly growing domain of environmental influence on individuals and groups. As our virtual surroundings have become increasingly prominent since the 1980s, humans are now confronted with complex adaptive challenges as they navigate between online and place-based communities. Some of these challenges are chronic information overload and the distractions imposed by multitasking ; identity theft and other forms of cybercrime ; and the Digital Divide separating information-poor and information-rich segments of the world's population. The spread of cyber technologies in the Digital Age has transformed neighborhoods, workplaces, educational settings, government institutions, scientific collaboration, health-care delivery, online dating, and more. Augmented and virtual reality, 3-D printing, autonomous vehicles, and the Internet of Things are transfiguring our immediate and more distant milieu. Understanding how people respond to and modify their surroundings requires explicit consideration of the cybersphere and its far-reaching impacts on the natural, built, and sociocultural features of environments, as well as the combined influence of these different spheres on behavior, health, and sustainability.