Natural Environment Versus Digital Environment. Educational Implications from the Perspective of the Body

  • José Manuel Muñoz Rodríguez
    Universidad de Salamanca pepema[at]usal.es
  • Sara Serrate González
    Universidad de Salamanca
  • Jordi Planella
    Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

Abstract

This article explores the dialectical relationship between natural and digital environments, foregrounding the body as the fundamental mediator of educational processes. Drawing on the triad body–space–education, it investigates how diverse spatial configurations shape the sensorial, cognitive, and emotional possibilities of human development. In response to the current hegemony of data-driven pedagogies—and the hyperconnectivity that has precipitated what scholars term a ‘deficit of nature’—the paper advocates for a reassertion of sensory pedagogy: one that recognises the body not as a mere vessel for the brain, but as a site of embodied knowing.

Extant literature suggests a marked contrast in the developmental affordances of these two milieus. Natural environments tend to nurture interdependent relationality, sensorial openness, and autonomous exploration; conversely, digital spaces often foster dependency, sensorial narrowing, and the fragmentation of embodied experience. To interrogate this dynamic, the analysis draws upon three interrelated theoretical strands: phenomenological accounts of embodiment, theories of enactive and embodied cognition, and anthropological distinctions between place (as a locus of meaning, memory, and belonging) and non-place (as transient, instrumental, and decontextualised).

Empirically, findings are informed by a qualitative study involving 33 focus groups composed of children aged 9–11 years. Discussions were designed to elicit children’s lived experiences across natural and digital settings, with thematic analysis conducted using NVivo. The data reveal a consistent orientation toward natural environments as sources of coherence, agency, and self-regulation—suggesting that the re-naturalisation of educational practice is not merely desirable, but ethically and developmentally imperative.

The paper concludes by proposing that contemporary pedagogy ought not to pit the natural against the artificial, but rather pursue a dialectical complementarity between them. Such an approach must be grounded in the recognition that human embodiment requires pentasensory engagement and spatial conditions conducive to holistic unfolding. Only then can education meaningfully foster identities rooted in ecological belonging, ethical responsibility, and creative resilience.

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