With More Technology, There’s Less of a There There

The Internet and new wireless communications tools have created a burgeoning population of digital nomads for whom physical place is rapidly becoming irrelevant to daily life. One executive who travels 15,000 miles monthly pointed to a briefcase bulging with devices that support her constant stream of calls, e-mails and instant messages and said, “I work from that. The place doesn’t matter.” Social scientists wonder if this relentless electronic communications lifestyle may be eroding the feelings of belonging and attachment that many consider cornerstones of happiness and community and promoting a disorientation and rootlessness that can spread from work to home. “Technology, by erasing distance, is erasing also our sense of place,” said Harvard University professor Robert D. Putnam.