Theories of face-to-face interaction employ a concept of spatial presence and view communication via digital technologies as an inferior version of interaction, often with pathological implications. Current studies of mediatized communication challenge this notion with empirical evidence of “telepresence”, suggesting that users of such technologies experience their interactions as immediate. We argue that the phenomenological concepts of the lived body and mediated immediacy (Helmuth Plessner) combined with the concept of embodied space (Hermann Schmitz) can help overcome the pathologizing of digital communication in social theory and enable descriptions which are truer to the experience of using said technology. From this perspective it appears as an ethnocentric premise to restrict interaction to human actors being present in local space. This restricted understanding of interaction does not allow for an appropriate empirical analysis of the emerging structures of digital communication.

面对面互动的理论采用了空间存在的概念，并将通过数字技术进行的交流视为互动的劣等形式，通常具有病理意义。当前对中介通信的研究以“智真”的经验证据挑战了这一概念，表明这种技术的用户体验到了他们的互动是即时的。我们认为，活体和中介即时性的现象学概念（Helmuth Plessner）与体现空间的概念（Hermann Schmitz）相结合，可以帮助克服社会理论中数字通信的病理学问题，并使描述更真实地体现在使用中说技术。从这个角度看，将交互作用限制在局部空间中存在的人类行为者看来是一个以民族为中心的前提。