What's the Context for 'Value' in Virtual Learning Spaces?

The following quotation resonates with me. And it's an interesting tool for thinking about place, college campuses as sustainable things, etc. 

Increasingly, we are finding resonances between maintenance of place, of genius loci, and global ecological survival. These result from several fundamental conditions. Much of what is valued by humankind is the result of a long, evolutionary process in which the growth and development of habitation of the planet has been informed by interaction with context.

Understanding the intrinsic value of what currently exists produces attitudes which are far more likely to embrace adapting and reusing, rather than demolishing and replacing — an integral aspect of any sustainable planning effort. From Carl Stein in Architecture Week, excerpted from  his book, Greening Modernism: Preservation, Sustainability, and the Modern Movement. 

What I cannot seem to think clearly about is what the impact on campus space will be as more and more "learning space" is virtual - even if "blended." Virtual space is nearly limitless, has infinite contexts, and never ceases to change. What kind of "long, evolutionary process" is that to serve as a process for determining what is valued by humans, as it changes every few months?

Makes me think of the Leonard Cohen song, The Future, in which he sings about "Things are gonna slide ... in all directions ... won't be nothing you can measure anymore."