Abstract
Digital nomads (DNs) are independent professionals who rely heavily on digital media and communications, are not bound to the constraints imposed by traditional organizations, and prioritize variables such as cheaper living costs when deciding where to live. Communication technologies enable the emergence of this digital lifestyle that is characterized by high mobility, self-efficacy, location-independent resource-sharing, and minimalism. The immediate outcome of the Covid-19 pandemic created an unprecedented space for debate between the DN community and the mainstream. On the one hand, the mainstream recognized the adaptive advantages of location independence and working remotely; on the other, DNs realized that one of their most fundamental values—the freedom to move—could become compromised by stringent border regulations forcing them to reassess nomadism. This article draws on risk society theories, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and self-actualization, to approach this problem. We Analyzed content produced by DN creators on YouTube, focusing on risk perceptions and arguments about the choice of staying nomad, compared with the alternative, that is, going back “home” seeking safety: (1) we found that most creators upheld core DN values, rather than shifting to fear-based or risk-control narratives driven by the effects of the pandemic. The narratives circulated in the videos thus contributed to reinforce the community’s values related to self-actualization, in a time of crisis; (2) as a group, the creators we studied were not biased to one option (keep moving or go home) and rather offered strong arguments to support either choice.
Introduction
Digital nomads (DNs) are independent professionals who rely heavily on digital media and communications (Hardy & Robards, 2015). They are not bound to the constraints imposed by traditional organizations and prioritize variables such as cheaper living costs and good weather when deciding where to live (Bozzi, 2020; Gretzel & Hardy, 2019; Hall et al., 2019).
DNs do not define themselves as part of a specific demographic (Wang et al., 2018), yet most are highly educated professionals in their 30s who own so-called “strong” passports that allow them to work in many countries, at least for short periods (Thompson, 2019). The DN preferred destination countries typically satisfy four criteria: (1) lower cost of living (compared with the DN’s home country), (2) good weather, (3) diverse leisure activities, and (4) attract people from diverse cultural backgrounds (Chayko, 2008; Thompson, 2019). A key differentiating factor of the DN lifestyle is the prioritization of achieving life goals through self-actualization (Beck-Gernsheim, 2002; D’Andrea, 2006; Lyng, 2008; McLeod, 2007) over ensuring basic survival human needs (food, shelter, and safety; Douglas, 2015; McLeod, 2007).
The practices of location independence and remote work that characterize the DN lifestyle were growing before the Covid-19 pandemic imposed working from home as a norm for public health (Aroles et al., 2020; Bauman, 2013; D’Andrea, 2006; Hemsley et al., 2020). The restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic severely inhibited mobility globally since it puts people at greater risk of spreading diseases (Law, 2006). Indeed, one of the reasons the Covid-19 virus spread to the entire planet so quickly was hyper-mobility and the fact that constraints were imposed already too late by most countries (Barbieri et al., 2021). Governments dealt with the onset of the pandemic by imposing stringent border restrictions (Richter, 2020). For the DN community, this meant having to stay in one place for a longer time than initially planned, with this impinging on one of the DN fundamental values—location independence (especially open borders) (Bozzi, 2020).
DNs embrace the risks associated with travelling and location independence creatively and dynamically. In their pursuit of self-actualization, they develop and refine methods, identify new resources, and share useful information with their peers through fast communications enabled by the internet. For example, in the context of border restrictions (Woldoff & Litchfield, 2021), DNs often rely on the so-called “visa run”— a widely used mechanism to avoid the often cumbersome process of reapplying for a visa (Green, 2015). This practice entails travelling from the current base (Country A) to a neighbouring Country B for a short period to reset the length of stay in Country A automatically. Many other similar tactics exist, but most of them assume there is a degree of freedom to cross borders.
Naturally, the risks to mobility associated with full border closure create tensions in anyone deciding to adopt or keep practising the DN lifestyle (Barbieri et al., 2021). In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, stringent regulations imposed by most governments have shown that there are not many creative mechanisms left for DNs to overcome such unwanted situation, thus compromising the ways of life that are the foundation of the DN community. On the contrary, several studies consider DNs as a useful case study for capturing trends and forecasting future work practices (Hemsley et al., 2020; Sutherland & Jarrahi, 2017). In this work, we seek to answer the following questions: (1) How did the DN community approach the adaptations necessary to cope with the scenarios imposed at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic? and (2) Was self-actualization, a key value in the DN lifestyle, affected by the restrictions on mobility?
We base our analysis on narratives produced by DN creators with a substantial following on YouTube. Our perspective rests on the assumption that these creators were highly motivated to remain relevant to their audience—especially during the pandemic—by producing narratives that (1) resonated with the DN community and (2) aligned with the DN fundamental community values. In general, creators stressed the importance of upholding these values by, for example, adapting their goal-seeking plans and reflecting on how to still achieve their “best selves” in the new scenario.
Literature Review
Self-Actualization
A defining feature of the DN community is the prioritization of their personal life trajectories as individuals (Beck-Gernsheim, 2002). DNs thus accept the risks and hardships that characterize alternative careers, making them secondary to their self-actualization goals.
The notion of self-actualization was put forward over 70 years ago as part of Maslow’s unfinished work on a theory of motivation (Maslow, 2013). In Maslow’s view, motivation is intrinsically linked to a hierarchy (or pyramid) of human needs. The basic needs of safety, food, and shelter are at the base of this pyramid. Higher levels of this pyramid include social belonging, connection, and then self-esteem. All of these needs must be satisfied to some degree so that a human being can attain the highest state of being: self-actualization. While the precision of Maslow’s unfinished theory has been widely criticized, for example, it does not account for cultural and individual variation, many of its constituent ideas remain relevant and still guide current research (see Kaufman, 2018, and references therein).
Maslow conceptualized two types of motivation. The first is the so-called deficiency motivation that refers to a state in which people are driven to act based on what is perceived as threats to their basic needs. The second type is known as growth motivation. In this motivational state, people take actions to explore, create for themselves, and co-create with others. Such individuals choose to focus on their health, development, relationships, and the meaning of life (Maslow, 2013). Maslow posited that growth motivation was possible only once basic needs were satisfied to a sufficient degree. Paradoxically, DNs turn Maslow’s hierarchy of needs upside down by prioritizing self-actualization above basic needs (D’Andrea, 2006; Maslow, 2013; McLeod, 2007).
While DNs constantly face the risk of sliding into precarious work situations (Sutherland & Jarrahi, 2017), they choose to put a greater focus on their autonomy, self-expression, and experimentation. In this sense, they are risk-takers with contradictory connotations of their nomadic status, as well as the political undertones of their relationship with both movement and labour (Bozzi, 2020). DNs prefer to cope with setbacks on what most people consider basic needs than to sacrifice their self-actualization goals (de Almeida et al., 2021). It must be noted, however, that neither actively cultivating nor seeking risk is part of the DN lifestyle. Instead, it is the experience of working in different projects and locations, interacting with different cultures, as well as handling risk and uncertainty in a controlled and calculated manner (Douglas, 2015) that is not constrained by seeking the benefit of a secure life within the confines of the state (Deleuze & Guattari, 2010), what counts as crucially defining aspects of the DN lifestyle—all of which contribute to self-actualization (Stark & Levhari, 1982).
EdgeWork
To invert the priorities in Maslow’s pyramid of needs upside down, DNs rely, fundamentally, on the diversification of income sources, actively avoiding dependence on a constant source of income, which would impinge on their freedom to move. It is worth noting that such income diversification and the ensuing DN mobility patterns may have contributed to gentrification in the locations where they live and work (Williams & Baláž, 2012). Nicola Bozzi further suggests that the DN community has the power to become a political subject through a cultural and aesthetic appropriation of the idea of remote work and proposes that digital nomadism is a collective cultural product (Bozzi, 2020). DNs are thus often perceived as “rebellious” by the mainstream (Beck, 2016). At the root of such perception is the misconception that DNs embrace risk—a behaviour commonly associated with the so-called EdgeWorkers (Lyng, 2008).
While the original notion of EdgeWork was about risk-taking for leisure, it quickly developed to encompass other domains, including many elements of the DN’s lifestyle. EdgeWork and standard theories of risk are opposite to each other in terms of how they conceptualize uncertainty. Coming back to Maslow’s ideas about human needs, EdgeWork understands risk in a positive light to attain higher self-actualization needs. In contrast, standard theories of risk equate uncertainty to the consequences of losing the resources that ensure that basic needs, such as food and shelter, are covered (Lyng, 2008). Indeed, DNs and EdgeWorkers share the idea that risk is something to work with rather than something to avoid at all costs. This approach to risk explains its acceptance better than the idea that DNs and EdgeWorkers take on risks “lightly” (Siegrist & Árvai, 2020).
Taking responsibility for one’s life trajectory is a vital concept for DNs and the readiness to take risks converges to some of the most basic orientations of modernity: “The capability to disturb the fixity of things, open up new pathways, and thereby colonize a segment of a novel future, is integral to modernity’s unsettling character” (Giddens, 1991). For many DNs, the current pandemic is an opportunity to reflect on the nature of citizenship in the risk society. Being a type of justice-oriented citizens (Pietrocola et al., 2021) that move around the world to places that welcome them, DNs are questioning and changing established systems and structures that reproduce patterns of injustice over time. Thus, the phenomenon of “strong passes” and how their owners perceive the risks of mobility during Covid-19 inspired this work.
The Diversity of Risk Perception
German sociologist Ulrich Beck proposed that there has been a very significant qualitative leap in how people conceive and deal with risk. Until the Industrial Revolution and the onset of the Information Age, people worried about common external risks, such as natural disasters, diseases, or invasions. External risks were perceived similarly by people across social groups. Variations in this perception could be explained in terms of probability distributions associated with the chances of some dangerous situation actually happening. According to Beck, people see risk differently nowadays. New forms of risk exist because of, for example, technology and global politics. Human decisions bring new dangers into existence—a paradigmatic example of this climate change (Beck, 2009). Managing these new layers of risk requires significant cognitive effort and more coordination between individuals in connection to their immediate circles. At least partially, such effort is necessary to integrate information about the effects of decisions made by other humans at several levels of a sociopolitical hierarchy. Unsurprisingly, an expected outcome of this new type of risk is that people in different social circles become more diverse, both in how they conceptualize these dangers and in how they handle them. Several ethnographic studies contributed to this emergent account of risk (e.g., Douglas, 2015; Rayner & Cantor, 1987; Rittel & Webber, 1973; Wynne, 2002).
In this view, modern societies have to manage two sides of risk. On the objective side, there is still a need for managing risks originating in external sources, for which we have information, including, for example, probabilities and causal factors. Subjectivity is central to the other, more recent side of risk perception. Our socially constructed values determine not only the relative impact of different risks associated with human decisions but also our internal models of those other people’s intentions and priorities, for example, politicians (Schenk et al., 2019). Naturally, different norms and belief systems differ in how people conceptualize the dangers stemming from human actions (D’andrade, 1995).
DNs in particular are very aware of these risks and have thus developed resourceful, creative, and pragmatic approaches that are centred on the individual, but that result in knowledge that is widely shared and constantly updated at the community level. Broad political changes have shifted western societies toward adopting neoliberal policies, where the responsibility for dealing with life challenges such as unemployment, health, and ageing problems is an individual’s concern (Lyng, 2008). For example, Nicola Bozzi defined digital nomadism as a contradictory avatar of neoliberalism by highlighting its role in defining a depoliticized aesthetics of global work (Bozzi, 2020). Not only do these individuals face risk consciously, but they also consider diverse sources of risk information in decision-making processes guided by neoliberal values (Wong & Lockie, 2018). Sharing their risk-assessment processes through social conversation has informed the collective DN mindset. Indeed, the vicarious experiences gained from interaction among peers contribute to a feeling of self-efficacy (Pollnac et al., 1998) that informs the belief that taking risks may be necessary to achieve goals that contribute to individual self-actualization. Unsurprisingly, such a perception of skilful self-efficacy fuels a sense of control over the potential negative consequences of risk (Lyng, 2008).
Critical mechanisms for how DNs manage risk emerged from the “communication technology boost” (Hemsley et al., 2020), which enabled an almost instant connection between peers of a social group, thus diminishing the perception of danger associated with previously unknown risks quickly (Sutherland & Jarrahi, 2017). Thus, social network hyperconnectivity generates a seemingly paradoxical collective reinforcement of the DN’s individualistic approach to risk. Further reinforcement stems from the fact that people tend to change their behaviour to achieve a stronger sense of membership in the social group they want to belong to (Gioia, 2017). In a similar vein, social regret (Cooper & Rege, 2011) posits that individuals act like their peers to avoid a sense of loss from inaction.
All of this suggests that DNs, as a collective, continuously develop mechanisms for better individual decision-making in risky scenarios. This dynamic interplay between individual and social cognition endows DNs with the ability to adapt more swiftly to changing conditions and risk perceptions.
Method
In this article, we report findings obtained through the qualitative analysis of content (Neuendorf, 2017) collected on the video-sharing media platform YouTube. We collected a set of YouTube videos found using the search terms Digital nomads and Covid-19. Following a snowball approach, we considered other creators or videos mentioned in the first videos (indeed a number of them predate the pandemic) until we reached a final set of 20 videos produced by 13 creators who identify themselves as DNs. Table 1 shows a characterization of the creators considered in our corpus, while Tables 2 and 3 characterize the 20 videos selected for analysis.
Characterization of Content Creators.
Note: ‘Subs.’ stands for Number of Subscribers, and in that column of the table, the value ‘Und.’ stands for Undisclosed.
Characterization of the Video Corpus Analyzed—Videos 1 to 10.
Characterization of the Video Corpus Analyzed—Videos 11 to 20.
We purposely sought content on the topics of our research questions, namely, how DNs approached the adaptations necessary to cope with the scenarios imposed at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and the effects of mobility restrictions on fundamental DN values, especially self-actualization. Relevant data for these questions can be broadly captured under the more general category of videos where creators discuss the reevaluation of independence and mobility favouring state welfare, which we refer to henceforth as the DN dilemma. The chosen qualitative analysis approach is an adequate method of inquiry into how a community dealt with a recent social adjustment given the size of the corpus and the potential complexity of the information available data. Our study rests on the assumption that these creators were highly motivated to remain relevant to their audience especially during the pandemic by producing narratives that (1) resonated with the DN community and (2) aligned with one of the DN fundamental values, namely, the timely diffusion of pragmatic advice on how to deal with unprecedented obstacles.
We used the YouTube automated speech-to-text transcription, copy-pasted transcripts of all 20 videos, and organized the output video transcripts into a repository in Microsoft Excel. Access to online YouTube video content is public; hence, no sensitive issues were identified while transcribing and storing the material (Franzke et al., 2020).
After preprocessing and cleaning raw text data, one author (first coder) examined the generated text transcripts for each video using an inductive, interpretative method to identify (1) macro and (2) micro topics. During our collaborative meetings, we defined macro and micro topics. For example, broad subjects that touch on essential aspects of the DN lifestyle formed macro topics: personal values, cost of living, integration into local life, mobility, cultural diversity, and others. Micro topics, instead, were always about concrete issues or entities, for example, specific freelancing possibilities, building a specific online business, or restrictions in a particular country.
Next, the first coder performed an inductive analysis (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) on the transcript of every video, identifying narrative blocks that are relevant topical instances that combine macro and micro topics in specific ways. Together, we conducted relevance criteria considered: (1) how prevalent the topic is across the videos and (2) how much it relates to decision-making and risk. At this step, we did not focus on DNs dilemma of staying or moving during the pandemic. The output was a set of 19 topics, each of which was labelled with unique codes. The first coder processed these topics to assign a second label that describes the topic’s relevance to our primary research questions (we used three levels: high, medium, and low). We considered the coded topics in a generic sense, that is, out of context, when assigning relevance labels.
With this coding system, the first coder looked at the transcripts for each video again. This time, the goal was to assign a primary and a secondary code to each narrative block. In addition, we decided to add “relevance” labels to each of these codes during online meeting discussions by looking at their default relevance score in the coding system and revising it to account for context. In the final step, we computed the basic statistics for the annotations we made on the transcripts to gain insight into the data.
Of a total of 19 topics, nine were considered to be highly relevant to narratives about the aforementioned DN dilemma. We turn to these over the next section. We combined those nine topics into identified four prevalent themes discussed by the creators with relevance both before and during the time of pandemic about (1) comparison of legislation and government policies for DN; (2) the assessment of stay versus keep moving decisions; (3) pros and cons of location independence, and perception of risks and handling of safety-related issues; and (4) self-management and techniques for self-actualization.
Results
By looking at the prevalence of the coded narrative blocks, we observed that creators’ narratives remained aligned with DN’s fundamental values for the most part—particularly, in terms of supporting freedom of movement and work location independence. Notably, creators did not make dealing with the pandemic a decisive factor in this context explicitly. Instead, they largely focused on personal development, learning new skills, and upholding the values of the DN lifestyle. To a lesser extent, creators spoke about possible new trade-offs between desirable policies affecting DNs as well as on living costs and “hacks” to keep them low. Another prevalent topic concerned the places to which DNs should go in the case of moving. Most of the creators we studied advised their audience to go to the most popular pre-pandemic DN hubs. Yet, there were a few mentions of new places that may have been offering an appealing trade-off between policies and living costs to DNs at the time when our corpus data were collected. While we expected that most creators would lean either to keep moving or going back home during the lockdown, what we found was that creators’ positions varied in a broad spectrum of justifications that accommodated both possibilities.
Comparison of Legislation and Government Policies
The discussion about long-term travel policies reflected in narrative blocks about the so-called “Digital Nomad visa” was perhaps an expected political response to DNs exerting pressure to stay longer in some places due to travel restrictions and regulations. In the same context, creators focused on entry/exit procedures, quarantines, and Covid-19 tests. Indeed, several governments started to issue long-term visas for independent professionals with high income and the ability to work remotely. Our corpus provided evidence that DNs began to evaluate such opportunities right at the start of the pandemic. Several social media contents about DN visas were produced at the time. For example, Christin Wilson (Table 2, Video 2) evaluated different offerings of DN visas. Her narrative reflected on the second most frequent topic in our corpus, namely, living costs vis-à-vis country visa legislation for DNs: 2020 has been the year of the digital nomad visa for sure! There are upwards of 15 or 20 different digital nomad visas on the planet right now, and before the coronavirus pandemic, there were zero. There were some freelancer visas, some startup visas, and work permits, and things like that. But before this pandemic, there was no such thing as a digital nomad visa as the basic premise.
In the video, “Digital Nomad Visas EXPLAINED: The Best and Worst Work and Travel Permits” (Table 3, Video 18), Christin Wilson assessed how attractive some new visas were for DNs. In her comparisons, most of these visas favoured a segment of knowledge workers from high-income countries. For instance, Dubai began to offer a specific DN visa that allowed anyone with an income of $5,000/month or more to live there for 12 months, with the possibility to prolong their stay. This visa also allowed people to work in the Dubai market and interact with the local workforce. Traditionally, DNs were not allowed to do this almost anywhere. From the content characterized in Table 2, Video 2, One of the only downsides about living in Dubai is that the cost of living can be high, ranging from $2000 per month and up to thirty-five hundred dollars per month for most expats and digital nomads, but this rate can be much higher for families with a cost of up to eight thousand. . .
Christin Wilson argued that many DN visa rules were not well articulated with DN values and priorities. Thus, they lacked real value to them. These rules proposed not only disproportionate requirements of earnings but also high application fees. One example of such is a Barbados DN visa: . . . this digital nomad visa is doubling the length of time that you can stay in Barbados but it comes with a price a two to three thousand dollars non-refundable application fee and so unless there is definitely a downside unless you have a specific reason that you want to stay in Barbados for 12 months, I’m gonna say—pass denied.
Furthermore, these visas did not address many DN concerns, such as, often, their inability to comply with constraints of the traditional legislation, like notarized bank references or proof of life insurance, because of short-term working contracts and unstable income.
The Assessment of Stay Versus Keep Moving Decisions
DNs who, despite all challenges, chose to continue travelling expressed their thoughts about their choice of countries to visit during the pandemic. Eric, a DN from Belgrade running “Support Adventure” (Table 3, Video 11), said, I’m not really that afraid of getting sick but, you know, it does factor into the way that your experience as a digital nomad will be in those places so you have to consider restrictions on entry to those places and also the restrictions on daily life and how much worse it can get.
He identified Brazil as a country of his choice to travel to at the end of 2020 and early 2021: Brazil’s pretty um somehow attractive because I feel like how much worse could it get in that country and it’s probably going to start getting better so I’m considering going there. . .
Both he and his colleague Tal, a Canadian entrepreneur from Vancouver, have been around several countries since the start of the pandemic. Eric said that he has visited Thailand, Serbia, Belarus, and Turkey. In contrast, Tal visited Thailand, Sri Lanka, Oman, Turkey, Canada, and Serbia. They admitted that their values have changed dramatically since 2019, resulting in less spontaneous and more structured and planned travelling.
Pros and Cons of Location Independence, and Risk Perceptions During Pandemic
Discussions about living costs (the second most discussed topic in our corpus) often took place in conjunction with the perception of pandemic risks and staying safe while still being a DN. This was a subject in 12 videos of the 20 we analyzed. The risk of being stuck in a country with an unstable economy and insufficient legal protections was one of the reasons why Anette Fortner, an American v-logger and travel journalist, decided to move back home (Table 3, Video 19): my mindset started to shift from being worried about getting the virus to social order, crime, theft when supply chains start to fail and I had to ask myself is this where I want to be for three months when businesses shut down and when people are no longer making money and that answer was no, so yeah goodbye.
Martin Liam, the founder of the largest remote work conference, “Running Remote”, strongly advised peers to travel home as soon as possible (Table 3, Video 14). His main argument was that a global infrastructure collapse was a possibility in the scenario that the spread of Covid-19 spiralled out of control and that DNs should not be part of the problem, in his words: There is an issue I want to address with you guys right now if you are currently travelling internationally, you are part of the problem you are not part of the solution you need to be able to take this time off go back to your country and prepare to get through this.
Johnny FD is a British web developer with Asian roots who has lived in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Bali, and Sri Lanka. He questioned the choice of travelling back home during uncertain times when so many flights were cancelled, and there were no guarantees of reaching the desired destination (Table 2, Video 9): I would say if it becomes a real genuine concern don’t even fly home or any home country and that makes it worse, just stay where you are but find a small not so populated town, hopefully by the sea where it’s warm get some fresh air stay away from big cities, stay away from airports don’t change your travel plans.
Most of the creators that advised people to go back home (before border closures) come originally from developed countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. Their attitudes are somewhat different from DNs that come from other parts of the world. This gap became evident in narrative blocks, where DN creators expressed feelings like guilt or anxiety of being affected by pandemic crises. For example, in a video produced by Sergio Sala titled “14 Digital Nomads in Quarantine: Covid-19 Stories” (Table 2, Video 7), Chad Nattan, a DN from South Africa, was eager to see the pandemic crisis as an opportunity to do meaningful work and help others: . . . the company I work with is a very highly connected health care affiliate and we only work for safe doings and we are all working in crazy a lot but it’s, it’s very needed right now and we know that actually with every step we take we can help people.
Since mobility is a core aspect of their lifestyle, DNs were already very familiar with travelling hygiene procedures before the start of the pandemic. Thus, by minimizing the probability of undesirable outcomes, such as getting stuck in a place with poor sanitary infrastructure, DNs were, to some extent, less likely to catch and spread diseases (Table 2, Video 9): I am keeping my immune system strong and healthy, exercise, eat healthily, have my stress low and wash my freakin hands twenty seconds soap and water don’t touch my face that’s kind of the precautions that I’ve made for myself and not just because a coronavirus I always do that. . .
Johnny FD further admits, Chances of dying from coronavirus are way less than being hit by a car while walking outside and it does not matter where you live. . .
Pollnac and colleagues found the same type of narrative among a community of fishermen, who made similar comparisons between the dangers associated with fishing compared with those of driving a car. Again, there was a common recognition that the individual can reduce some physical risks, including a degree of fatalism associated with risks of danger from external events (Pollnac et al., 1998). DNs that chose to stay where they were during the onset of the pandemic were generally hopeful about the future. Two enthusiastic global citizens from the YouTube channel “Support Adventure” told their followers (Table 3, Video 11) said, “Don’t let fear dictate your life” and asked them to be proud of having the opportunity to visit four different countries during this whole thing.
Furthermore, the same creators suggested that this pandemic would propel DNs to being more generally accepted by the mainstream: It will be a change for digital nomads after the pandemic, yeah they’re not gonna look at us like those are the crazy guys anymore—yeah exactly.
In his video, “Emergency Message for all Digital Nomads” (Table 3, Video 14), Martin Liam shared a message that went more along the lines of traditional risk perceptions to the DN community concerning the real danger of not being able to get access to food or medical care in developing countries: Now it is not gonna be safe for you to be in Thailand or Vietnam or Bali when you’re not a citizen of that country and you’re trying to get medical care or more importantly you’re just trying to be able to get access to food because frankly, you’re at the very bottom of that list.
Self-Management and Self-Actualization Techniques
In this context, creators aligned to a single vision that favours healthy routines at the same time as accepting new risks to break out of routines creatively (Table 2, Video 1): . . . especially, you know, being a digital nomad . . . things are constantly changing around you. So always make it a priority, make it a habit, to take care of yourself. And now I have the awareness to recognize when things are slipping, and I take action and change course immediately when that happens.
In this video, “I became a digital nomad during Covid-19 Pandemic and here is what I learned”, Joanna Yung describes how taking care of herself keeps her ready to recognize and adapt to fast-changing scenarios. Notably, the focus was not on dealing with specific changes, but on taking care of herself to stay adaptable. Also, in the analysis of this video, we found the first direct and explicit description of how the pandemic would change the future lifestyle choices made by DNs. Yung framed this in the sustainability of travel: . . . feel like it’s our global duty to not only travel in the future in a slower pace, but also we should all travel more responsibly, sustainably and safely than we used to. . .
Johnny FD and Christin Wilson, both DNs with prior experience in working remotely and travelling, talked about why DNs were handling this unprecedented crisis so well in their short YouTube version from the podcast “Why Digital Nomads Cope Better Under Quarantine!” Uncertainties of income and isolation are dangers that DNs have experienced and adapted to before the pandemic. They find themselves accepting the “new normal” easily. These creators interviewed Kevin, a father of two who has been living the DN lifestyle for some time (Table 2, Video 9): It actually explains why my life hasn’t changed and I am not feeling so much difference at all: we have six and four years old with us who we still home-school on the road. We are in Tulum, Mexico now and have been skating lockdown in San Diego. It’s a shame that we can’t go to restaurants or visit the gym, but part of it, our life other than these services is normal and work is normal.
Narratives about dealing with lockdowns specifically were also present in our corpus, albeit in a much smaller proportion (approx. 8%). However, again, DN creators did not make the pandemic and lockdowns the main subject in their narratives. Rather, they suggested that people should use the lockdown in a positive way to develop skills and knowledge, productivity routines, as well as the self-management of healthy discourse.
Discussion
This study revealed that DNs’ assessment of risk in the decision to stay or keep moving during the Covid-19 pandemic was driven by the desire to retain the freedom they see as one of their core values. We confirmed that the DN community did not have a universal risk management strategy in the context of pandemics. Instead, strategies varied more according to (and were consistent within) the DN’s sociocultural background, than by their membership to the global DN community. For instance, some Covid-19 risks were perceived as very dangerous to DNs from developed countries, but as far less ominous to DNs from developing countries. Our data showed that the latter type of DN continued to disregard the dangers of economic collapses during the pandemic.
We also observed that DN creators portrayed themselves and their peers as sharing a conscious degree of outer structural control, which is similar to the self-driven personal control exercised by EdgeWorkers (Lyng, 2008). There is ample evidence that both groups accept, and even embrace, the risks they take. This passivity does not mean avoidance or willful ignorance of possible negative outcomes. Instead, it is a reflection of how DNs prioritize their goals according to their need for self-actualization.
Narrative production has been shown to help people in transition phases to cope with life stressors (Pennebaker et al., 1990). The DN community production of content about their thoughts and feelings in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic was on a scale of trustable content, where a positive attitude was a commonly observed feature of the contents we analyzed. The “Broaden-and-build theory” (Conway et al., 2013) suggests that thinking about an idealized future is associated with positive thoughts about that future, leading to enhanced levels of self-regulation, resilience, and in turn self-efficacy (Ceja & Navarro, 2009; Fay & Sonnentag, 2012). This process fits within positive psychology and the “salutogenesis” framework—an approach that focuses on factors that support human health and well-being, instead of factors that cause disease and burnout.
Risk management is an integral part of many DN routines; their approach to danger may thus have been shaped differently to the mainstream’s due to habituation and confirmation bias, with both individual and sociocognitive reinforcement playing a role. Indeed, we did not see a strong pull in a direction different from this habituation that could be explained by DN’s reassessment of risk to face the pandemic explicitly. Thus, for example, DN creators could have approached moving between countries as a much riskier activity during a pandemic. However, while some did, most creators followed confirmation bias in the direction opposite to high risk. As a result, they became more prone to seeking evidence partial to existing beliefs. We observed that DNs continued to seek out new risks to avoid the inflexibility of fixed and established routines and to remain excited and motivated. This type of dynamic is consistent with Lupton’s ideas about people of “the modern age”. She argues that the spread of communications technology has put into question established thought, expression, and practice, and has resulted in the deconstruction of all fixed structures and traditions (Lupton, 2013).
The interrelation between global hyper-mobility and subjectivity formation is one of the factors that mediate self-actualization observed by D’Andrea (2006). In his critique of self-actualization theory, he stated that any discussion of self-actualization arises from the requirement that people must have a choice of values and “good conditions” (Maslow, 2013, p. 105). By this, Maslow referred to a necessity for full access to information and the ability to choose without fear or social pressure. Schneider et al. (2014) discussed fear in a context relevant to this work by positing it as one of the mediators that restructure cognition and emotion, reducing human capability of self-actualization. On the contrary, the absence of fear, resulting from successful risk management practices, is one of the factors that mediate enhanced self-efficacy and self-actualization.
This connection seemed particularly noteworthy since we observed that DNs still approached risk as a part of their path to self-actualization at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic. We regarded this phenomenon as the flipside of modernity’s obsession with measuring, predicting, and controlling risk.
Conclusion
The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the normalization of many aspects of the DN lifestyle by blurring the traditional borders between work, leisure, home, and travel. But more importantly, it showed the DN-lifestyle adaptive superiority in global scenarios like the one imposed by the pandemic.
Our analyses revealed that creators in the DN community concentrated on narratives linked to self-actualization mostly. The majority of these narratives were, specifically, about self-development, learning new skills, and finding ways to remain a DN in the new crisis scenario. Narratives on these topics were surrounded and often contextualized by other narratives that, almost in equal proportions, focused on the nature of the DN lifestyle and on handling risks. On the latter topic, only a few creators used fear-based approaches and most of these encouraged DNs not to become “part of the problem” (the pandemic).
The analyzed content of YouTube channels such as Chase for Adventure, Joanna Yung, Johnny FD, or Support Adventure indicates that the DN community adapted quickly to lockdowns and expressed no general fear or stress of handling such issues, since they had already experienced the shortcomings of location-independent work, changes of travel plans, and other uncertainties of the gig economy (Sutherland & Jarrahi, 2017). This, together with the fact that narratives on developing new skills, trade-offs and workarounds were the most prevalent in our corpus led us to the conclusion that the DN community increased its adaptability to crisis scenarios. Preestablished attention and fostering of values like self-efficacy as well as experience in risk management can explain this adaptive vantage.
We framed risk on theoretical perspectives about individual and collective risk management practices. The goal was to understand how DNs make sense of risk in conjunction with the multiple restrictions and reduced mobility in situations like the Covid-19 pandemic. Beck’s theories provided us with insight into the type of modern risks stemming from human decisions, the perceptions of which may be shaped by varying constructs in distinct social groups (Beck, 2009). Several additional studies have concluded that people with a high degree of perceived control were prone to taking more risks. Indeed, both behaviours became intertwined in those cases (Gioia, 2017; Siegrist & Árvai, 2020).
Lyng’s (2008) “risk culture” perspective on postmodern societies, characterized by a link to individual responsibility for constructing a meaningful life path, also proved to be valuable as part of the framework of our study. We observed in our data that DN narratives matched the main features of “risk culture”. Thus, while risk-taking could have become an adaptive response to the ever-intensifying focus on control and predictability in modern societies, we also found that the DNs we studied actively sought new risks to avoid the stagnation of fixed routines. Taking such risks can be easier to do when social reinforcement is constantly available, which, in the case of DNs, makes them feel confident about choices that would seem far too risky in the mainstream’s eye. In addition, it became evident that rationality was a significant aspect of how DNs managed risks at the time, countering some traditionally held views that DNs take risks recklessly. The DN community seemed to resemble Lyng’s “risk culture” because both social groups value individual control over their life trajectories. Our analysis of DN creator narratives clearly showed the interplay between individual decision and action in a context where information about the external environment is actively processed collectively.
As more people seek to escape the daily commute to/from office cubicles (Thompson, 2019) to benefit from traditionally “reserved” advantages to some nationalities, it becomes evident that many of them now navigate the global space of inequalities of the capitalist system (Hermann & Paris, 2020). We expanded current knowledge about the interdependencies involving social network narratives about risk management produced by creators with a large following in the DN community. The global pandemic challenged the neoliberal figure of the DN to reevaluate individual independence and mobility in favour of state welfare and social protection (Deleuze & Guattari, 2010). Content creators seemed to have used the occasion to reinforce the community’s adaptive advantage over the mainstream. It also became clear that the DN sustained focus on welfare and self-actualization, even when pressured to shift their attention to the new risks, was a key aspect of the DN adaptability. Thus, the community’s values were not affected by the dramatic change of context, but reinforced instead.
One advantage that is also a caveat of this analysis was the focus on individual creator narratives. This methodological choice allowed us to focus on content produced by key members of the DN community about the effects of the pandemic on their lifestyles. This focus excluded the interactive aspect, namely, how the community assimilated and responded to these narratives. This could not be studied in the small number of comments on the videos in our corpus, but we leave a study on interaction using more comprehensive data from social media content for future work.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Karine Ehn acknowledges funding by the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), PhD grant UI/BD/151501/2021.
