In 1851, Arthur Schopenhauer formulated a famous metaphor to describe the difficulty of articulating the relationship between closeness and distance in relationships. On a cold winter's day, a number of hedgehogs come close together to warm each other and not freeze to death. Soon, however, they feel the pain of each other's thorns, and are forced apart. Then when the need to warm up brings them together again, the first problem reoccurs; and so on, tossed back and forth between the two ailments. Starting from this metaphor, Davide Sisto explains what happens today when, with the expansion of virtual spaces (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.) and the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, proximity and distance are no longer formulated only in terms of physical presence, but also as digital and virtual proximity. From an emotional and psychological point of view digital bodies directly affect the way we operate in the world. And they reveal to us that, even if we are firmly inserted within the new digital civilization, we never stop needing a close relationship to others. We are digital hedgehogs, tossed back and forth between the need for solitude and the need for contact, according to Schopenhauer’s metaphor.