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The emergence of digital technologies has affected the level of interaction and immersion that individuals have with both their virtual and physical surroundings, leading to fundamental shifts in people–environment relationships (Stokols, 2018). These levels of immersion vary by patterns of activity, spatial affordances, and occupants’ needs within particular settings. Misra and Stokols (2012) outlined four major orientations between people, physical places, and their virtual worlds: placeless, cyber-based, place-based, and place-cyber-based.

Globalization and the digital age have necessitated new design strategies which, in some cases, have resulted in virtual settings that are not culturally or geographically rooted (cf., Blanchard, 2004; Blanchard & Horan, 1998; Eldemery, 2009). Relatedly, some individuals exhibit placeless environmental orientation—a personal style or disposition in which individuals are …