Introduction: Technology, Nature, and Wellbeing in Contemporary Societies

Over the past three decades, the concept of “being in the world” has progressively shifted toward that of “being in multiple worlds”—a transformation induced by technological innovations, including virtual reality, and social networks, which have expanded the modalities through which individuals relate to external reality. This thematic collection explores how these transformations challenge traditional notions of embodiment, cognition, and moral responsibility, raising new philosophical, psychological, and ethical questions about what it means to act, relate, and exist in technologically mediated environments. The contributions collected in this issue examine how contemporary research engages with these challenges across diverse contexts, ranging from the ethical implications of datafication and algorithmic agency, to the psychological and embodied effects of immersive technologies, and the evolving relationship between ageing, cognition, and digital tools, revealing the complexity of adapting human life to a digitally augmented reality.