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Until the advent of the internet, laws of physics ensured that migrating to Australia – a far-flung island on the bottom end of the planet – meant losing touch with the day-to-day minutiae of one’s home country’s political and cultural upheavals.

As traumatic as that might have been – and I don’t underestimate the sense of unfamiliarity and isolation that must have assailed migrants – it forced their attention to their immediate physical and social environment, and attention is the currency of citizenship. The hyperconnectivity of the internet, and more significantly, the arrival of smart phones and social media have upturned these assumptions.…