It's the people with money, houses, and kids that departed the 'simple local' lifestyle when the Internet and social media become large. It's them that are re-discovering the joys of the simple local lifestyle.

The simple local lifestyle is that which was lived by all of humanity for all of history up until the last ~75 years (give or take).

> The simple local lifestyle is that which was lived by all of humanity for all of history up until the last ~75 years (give or take).

A percentage of people still traveled, communicated, traded and migrated to other places in the past. Cities were a mix of lots of people, commerce, news. It was just slower and a smaller percentage. Look at the letters of Paul in the bible. He was writing to different communities around the Roman Empire, and traveled to them when he could.

Looking at the big picture, trade, communication and migration are the norm over human history. We colonized the world before the Industrial Revolution, some humans did it thousands of years prior.