Psychological Neighborhood

Morley talks about the "psychological neighborhood" or personal community, "a network of non-local ties" whereby "community is transformed: living physically near to others is no longer necessarily to be tied into mutually dependent communication systems" (8). This reminds me of parental accusatory looks when a teenage me would walk around the apartment while listening to my portable CD player: "It's like you are not with us." True, but somehow they did not say this when I was sitting in the living room reading a book. Now we have personal phones and social media, but this concept of being physically present but psychologically elsewhere goes back to dreaming, meditating, praying, reading, listening to music, being absorbed by any psychological task. So I'd like to note that we've always been predisposed to psychological neighborhooding, on the continuum of the neighborhood of the self to neighborhoods of millions. 

Morley zeros in on the idea of the community of non-local people who communicate faster than physical neighbors. And those of us who weren't conscious of the non-local communities in our lives,  COVID-19 is giving us an opportunity to really notice our entanglements with non-local people. I think the term "psychological neighborhood" encompasses the tone of what confined Westerners are currently experiencing: a stimulating yet intangible kind of interactional existence. It allows us to reflect on both the strengths and pitfalls of communication media.