The human-digital co-construction of subjectivity

Proceedings of The 3rd World Conference on Social Sciences Studies

Year: 2022

DOI:

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The human-digital co-construction of subjectivity

Claudia Landolfi

ABSTRACT: 

Digital technology extends our psychophysical abilities and has now fully constituted our nature. To what extent is digital a tool for fair and balanced growth and advancement of our potential? How far can digital technology be used to shape and guide our decisions, desires, and personalities? Can we think of digital as an outside tool, or does our mind see it as an integrated element of our body-mind? These questions must be addressed using an interdisciplinary approach that combines philosophical, psychological, and neuroscientific research tools such as neuroimaging to derive a broad picture of the processes that shape contemporary subjectivity and identify current trends. The hypothesis taken into consideration and discussed in this work is that the human-digital interaction goes beyond the categories through which the nature-technic relationship was thought of in the past in Western philosophical thought, as nowadays, thanks to scans of the brain, it is possible to recognize how digital technology modifies neural connections and intervenes in the development of certain areas of the brain. As we use digital and reflect upon it, our mind is already changing. The formation of the contemporary personality, therefore, takes place within digital processes which: affect subjectivation; they tend to follow approved schemes; they can be technologically oriented. If we consider the importance we attribute to humanity as a “human resource”, do we run the risk of a guided enhancement of it?

keywords: Ethics; Neuroimaging; Psychology; Digital Subjectivation.