Digitalization is often considered one cause for people's diminishing connection with the natural world, but in Animal Internet, Alexander Pschera proposes that the time we spend online has the ability to change our relationship to the wild for the better. At a time when animals and plants are going extinct at shocking rates--in rain forests alone, there is an estimated one extinction every six minutes--the natural world seems disconnected from modern human life. According to Pschera, most people know exceptionally little about how animals live and, in order to help them, he believes we need to understand more about them. This education can come through technology he calls the Animal Internet, a hyper-real way to experience the natural world.
Pschera discusses how animal reintroduction programs take data from transmitters embedded in animals and present the information on Facebook pages, creating a live-stream blog. Through social media, people can "friend" the animals and support initiatives that directly benefit them. This collaborative data sharing makes the animals part of the conversation for at least some humans and sensitizes people to the plights animals face. Just as social media has helped reveal the diversity of people and dismantle stereotypes, Pschera suggests that it can similarly increase our understanding of animals. He envisions a world where digital technology will allow for a new image of nature to emerge, one that is sensory, concrete and accurate. Animal Internet proposes this image will help save animals and preserve nature more effectively than any campaign or habitat ever will. --Justus Joseph, bookseller at Elliott Bay Book Company