The International Journal of Psychoanalysis

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The Online “Addiction” as a Malaise of the 21st

Century: From repression by the law to “free”
unlimited stimulation

Marianna Ferreira Jorge & Paula Sibilia

To cite this article: Marianna Ferreira Jorge & Paula Sibilia (2019) The Online “Addiction” as
a Malaise of the 21st Century: From repression by the law to “free” unlimited stimulation, The
International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 100:6, 1422-1438, DOI: 10.1080/00207578.2019.1702882

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00207578.2019.1702882

Published online: 15 Jan 2020.

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INT J PSYCHOANAL
2019, VOL. 100, NO. 6, 1422–1438
https://doi.org/10.1080/00207578.2019.1702882

Personal Reflections

The Online “Addiction” as a Malaise of the 21st Century:

From repression by the law to “free” unlimited stimulation
Marianna Ferreira Jorge and Paula Sibilia
Fluminense Federal University, Niterói, Brazil

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This article proposes to explore the notion of “civilization malaise”, Received 20 November 2019
or discontent, as defined by Sigmund Freud in 1930, focusing on Accepted 20 November 2019
the challenges posed by the “addictive” use of digital
KEYWORDS
communication and information technologies. Using the Suffering 1; Connection 2;
genealogical perspective, the hypothesis is that in the last Subjectivity 3; Repression 4;
decades a great historical transformation is happening, which Limits 5
affects subjectivities and ways of suffering. The obedient citizens
of industrial society, repressed by the rigor of the law under
“bourgeois morality” or “protestant ethics”, asphyxiated by the
solid institutional walls and by the rigidity of the modern “iron
cage” would be losing prominence. In their place, hyperstimulated
and self-centered consumers proliferate, governed more by desire
and self-realization than by duty and guilt. The insistent
connection to digital networks, voluntary although difficult to
(self) control is a paradigmatic case to study these changes.

1. The uncomfortable malaise in the culture of well-being

Happiness seems to have become the primary goal of contemporary individuals, being as
much a right as a kind of “duty” for everyone; it is not by coincidence that it is exhaustively
propagated in different media discourses, in commercials, films and in music lyrics, politi-
cal campaigns and actions, as well as in the screens of the omnipresent portable devices.
Despite the irrefutable evidence in favour of this statement, nevertheless, another ten-
dency threatens to counter it. In a society that so openly defends the rights to well-
being of all individuals and positions itself against any type of obstacle that makes this
access more difficult, psychic disturbances such as depression and panic, as well as all
types of anxieties and frustrations, have become more explicit – and ambiguously legiti-
mate – than ever.
This paper proposes to delve into this apparent paradox, making its contribution by
contemplating on some transformations that have been occurring in the last decades.
The work presented here is a part of a larger research project,1 currently in development,
that intends to investigate some characteristics of the subjectivities that developed
around the turn of the 20th century to the 21st; and, in particular, it seeks to map the

CONTACT Paula Sibilia paulasibilia@gmail.com

1
Cf. Project “Malaise in the 21st century: A cartography of historical transformations in the ways of suffering”, <www.
paulasibilia.com/malestar>.
© 2019 Institute of Psychoanalysis
 INT J PSYCHOANAL 1423

main sources of suffering being experienced. In principle, one perceives that the freedoms
gained with so much effort over the last decades did not come free of burden, but rather
entailed previously unseen forms of “submission” that still need to be better understood.
In this sense, we are starting from the presumption that we are dealing with a new type of
malaise, in the outbreak of which two factors play a fundamental role: on one hand the
habit of connecting to networks of information, and on the other, the contact with the
uninterrupted flux of the market.
In his famous essay of 1930, Civilization and its Discontents, Sigmund Freud carried out a
striking critique of Western culture and the disruptions it caused. In this text that already
has become a classic the author develops his arguments with emphasis on their paradox-
ical character, since the modern society seemed, up to this point, to have been more
capable of attending the ideals of happiness so atavistically sought after by the human
species. After outlining this paradox, Freud pointed to the repression that made an appear-
ance, tied to the necessities of the civilising process. Today, however, faced with the
growing flexibilisation of these ties, as well as the gradual expansion of certain forms of
dissatisfaction that appear to be typical to our times, it is fitting to take up once again
this diagnosis so boldly claimed a century before, to examine to what extent it continues
to be valid, and whether the playing field has changed.
When attempting to legitimise with scientific validity a new field of knowledge, that
soon would wield great influence in the Western sciences, the “father of psychoanalysis”
used certain strategies that may have impregnated his theories about human psyche with
a totalising and universalistic slant. Nevertheless, we consider that it may be useful to
apply these reflections about “civilisation” to the dynamic of the time, because they con-
tributed in giving shape to the anxieties of the subjects of that time and, in an even more
restricted sense, of that particular culture. Without a doubt, it was the position of modern
man and his existential problems that interested the author and his readers, as much to
understand them as to intervene in them, and it was from this fertile place that psycho-
analysis was born. “That which Freud calls civilisation corresponds in reality to the
process of modernisation of society that took place in the West since then”, observed
the Brazilian psychoanalyst Joel Birman, “in such a way that the idea of malaise in civilis-
ation must be interpreted as a critique of modernity” (2016, p. 41, translator’s translation).
Over the years following the publication of the fecund Freudian text – and, especially
from the 1960s onwards – many of the mechanisms that modelled the modern subjectiv-
ities were losing their strength; to a large extent, due to the conquests obtained through
socio-political struggles that were stirred up in the last half of the 20th century, the success
of which owed much to the influence of psychoanalysis. Some of these “power devices”
(Foucault, 2008) that were very active at the height of the industrial society, ended up
being criticised in such a ferocious manner that they were depleted, while others
adapted to the new times or transformed radically. The modes of suffering characteristic
to that way of life, confined within the solid walls of disciplinary institutions and under rig-
orous obedience to the laws, also altered themselves concomitantly.
Thus, certain unprecedented sufferings began to proliferate, typical of a culture that
praises and seeks the above-mentioned right to well-being instead of postponing it due
to prioritising other values. In addition, self-actualisation and self-esteem, free individual
initiative and entrepreneurial spirit are also worshipped more commonly than the virtue
of abiding by the norms or respecting the hierarchy of the authorities. Instead of
1424 M. F. JORGE AND P. SIBILIA

looking down on vain appearances and giving prestige to the wisdom of accumulated
experience, investment is being made in the positive effects of a corporal image with a
youthful style and the capacity for constant renewal, in tune with the rapid shifts of the
market. Amongst all these changes, what stands out is the resounding success of digital
technologies, due to information networks that not only permit but also stimulate a per-
manent connection with the largest possible quantity of interlocutors, shaking up the
ancient walls between public and private spheres.
The ample range of new historical updates, reviewed above, has multiplied the existen-
tialist possibilities for a good part of the global population; however, it also ended up pro-
voking a new breed of problems that trigger unforeseen sufferings. In what ways are such
current malaises similar to or different from those suffered by the subjects “gaged” in
bureaucratic and oppressive armours of modern institutions? Would the key indicator of
contemporary consciences still be that notorious triad – the feeling of guilt, the repression
of the drives and the obedience to the laws – denounced by Freud as well as other impor-
tant modern thinkers from Nietzsche (2009) to Foucault (2012)? In this article, invoking a
genealogical perspective, we will advance in the direction of the hypothesis that the
panorama has changed significantly: today the factors that are most incisive and
efficient in moulding subjectivities, including the ways of suffering and the ways of
dealing with these afflictions, are different.
In order to approach such a complex and incommensurable problem in the limited
space of these pages, we will focus on a specific – but crucial – field in which this typically
contemporary malaise manifests itself: the “excessive” use of mobile devices for communi-
cation and accessing information. Contrary to some theoretical branches, according to
which certain technologies are present as the “cause” of some changes in the ways of
life, here we will treat them as a socio-cultural invention amongst many others. In this
sense the artefacts in focus, with which we have so quickly become “compatible” at the
turn of the 20th to the 21st century, would be symptoms of a great historical change
that is followed by a series of new demands, desires, pressures and ambitions, as much
in the individual as on the collective plane, impacting the forms of sociability in a particu-
larly sensible way. By generalising and “naturalising” their use, these devices also contrib-
ute towards creating or boosting new types of connections and ways of life, subverting the
old uses of time and space, redefining the pleasures that are prioritised and spreading the
discontents that we attempt to examine here.

2. Moral duty and repression by the law

The subjects that spearheaded the industrial apogee usually considered themselves as
holders of a mystical and abstract essence, where the authentic core of each individual
resided. This was a peculiar and unique essence that constituted the real I and thus
grounded a relatively fixed and stable identity. This is why, in the modern culture that
experienced its peak in the European societies of the 19th and for much of the 20th cen-
turies, it was in the cultivation of an “internal life” that the I of each person was meticu-
lously defined, sprouting around an axis situated in their own depths. The metaphorical
dives in this intimate magma were stimulated by the habit of remaining in silence and soli-
tude, often accompanied by a book or a notebook, exercising a tacit – although very
loquacious – introspective monologue.
 INT J PSYCHOANAL 1425

Thus, the individual interiority of modern subjects was configuring itself as a myster-
ious, extremely rich and sometimes sombre place, the source not only of pulsating
desires but also of all kinds of thoughts, fantasies, emotions, conflicts and perturbations.
These experiences were themed as enigmatic manifestations originating in the singular
experience – lived or imagined – of each individual in the course of all their existence,
which took place as much on the shaded plane that was considered exclusively “interior”
as in the contact with the “external” world. All of this formed part of the truest essence of
each subject, that which really was, and served as an object for a science of substantial
importance in its proper sense: psychology. It is precisely for this motive that many
researchers refer to this type of subject as homo psychologicus. The definition of homo psy-
chologicus offered by one of these authors, Brazilian psychoanalyst Benilton Bezerra, refers
to someone who “learned to organise their experience around an axis situated at the
centre of their interior life” (2002, p. 231; translator’s translation).
In order for these ways of life to be conceived and to become fruitful, well-defined
borders were established between the public realm and private sphere, a crucial com-
ponent of the life organised in accordance with the bourgeois ethos. The solid walls of
the building that housed the nuclear family and, in turn, the privacy of “a room of one’s
own” (Woolf, 1985), were the foundational elements in configuring this modern subjectiv-
ity. Furthermore there was the daily devotion to analogue artefacts that enabled reading
and writing on paper, such as in printed novels, serials, letters and intimate diaries. In con-
trast to the hostile protocol governing public life in these societies undergoing a rapid
process of urbanisation, the home transformed itself into a territory of authenticity: a
refuge where the I felt protected, a shelter in which it was permitted to be “oneself”
(Sibilia, 2016). In this peculiar domestic scenario, intimacy was developing and autobiogra-
phical accounts were flourishing, both fundamental tools for becoming someone by pro-
ducing one’s own subjectivity in those distant times. “Without this zone, life in modern
society would be unliveable”, concluded the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor (2010,
p. 72).
The dense epistolary dialogues thus woven, accompanying the retirement into intimate
life and the sought-after removal from others inside four walls, were also means to protect
oneself from the anxieties and the conflicts caused by human relations in a context in
which severe “bourgeois morals” and, thus, their famous “hypocrisy”, reigned in public
life. However, to choose an existence sheltered in one’s own depths, also implied giving
up the attempt to obtain unrestricted pleasures in favour of caution and avoidance of ter-
rible mundane displeasures. “The happiness which can be achieved along this path is, as
we see, the happiness of quietness”, Freud had cautioned (2010, p. 32). This seems to have
been the most comfortable safeguard at the disposition of the modern subjects: the
refuge found in intimacy and interiority, against the dangers of the “external” world.
It should be remembered that the subjects that lived in the Western societies of 19th
century, as well as a good part of 20th, had amongst their highest values those that
formed the “character” and boosted the interior life of each one. Amongst them it is
worth noting honour, loyalty, mutual compromise, austerity, integrity, civil obligations
and sexual uprightness. These precepts acted in a crude harmony under the seal of a
primary value that served as an important cornerstone for the public sphere: respect.
According to one of the great defenders of this universe, the German philosopher Imma-
nuel Kant, respect constitutes the beginning of the moral law, being the effect of good will
1426 M. F. JORGE AND P. SIBILIA

acting rationally, in other words, independent of other interests or ends. This means that
the responsibility of acting in accordance with the law or, more specifically, with a rever-
ential respect for it, follows the moral imperatives that dictated the rhythm and the solidity
of the industrial society: duty and discipline.
That context, summing up, was lacking a long-term perspective which would allow the
emotional experiences to be processed and align themselves to the assembly of public
virtues that composed the morality of the citizen. Thus, by establishing clear – and
quite inflexible – objectives to be obeyed by all that renounced certain immediate satis-
factions; with the creation of social bonds that aimed at permanence and with the pristine
everyday work over themselves, the modern subjects straightened up their conduct by
taming their desires. Finally, in order to produce the correct citizen – that is, a good
worker and an individual useful to the designs of the world project current in those
times – both tenacious persistence and faith in progress were necessary, as observed
and illustrated by American sociologist Richard Sennett in his book of 1998, The Corrosion
of Character.
These moral conceptions were boosted by “protestant ethics” that, due to an adap-
tation of the “bourgeois” value system that characterised the Christian precepts, spread
rapidly throughout Western societies giving birth to what Max Weber would name as
“the spirit of capitalism” in his celebrated work of 1920. “The religious forces which
express themselves through such channels are the decisive influences in the formation
of national character”, noted the German sociologist in his canonical radiography of the
bourgeois soul (2002, p. 141). In the move from medieval monastery to professional life
established in democratic societies, “asceticism” penetrated into the worldly morality
and contributed to the propagation of duty and discipline as central principles of the
industrial era, creating new pressures for subjects. The valorisation of work and utilitarian
administering of earthly time were amongst its most exalted virtues, in addition to a value
that needed to be blessed with new ceremonies in its differentiation between sin and
avarice: the search for profit being gradually permitted and legitimised until it became
almost sanctified.
These peculiar modes of being and living in the world, briefly outlined in the previous
paragraphs, worked in harmony with a group of objects equally geared toward growing
modernisation of the world, in an era exhaustively analysed by Michel Foucault in the
his 1975 book Discipline and Punish. The author characterised it as the “disciplinary era”,
precisely in allusion to the socio-political and economic project that aimed to sustain
the wheels of industrial production and spawn citizens that were capable of giving their
lives to their countries. This is why meticulous work at the level of each individual and
at the level of the assembly of national populations was necessary; a giant task orche-
strated by politics of coercion, inscribed as much in the great apparatuses of states as
in the small gestures of the everyday rituals of diverse institutions.
The modern subjects were then led to interiorise the discipline that was demanded of
them, promoting an obstinate autogovernance over their acts that urged them to
renounce certain pleasures and to stand the pain resulting from such abdication in
favour of values that were considered superior, such as: common good, family, democracy,
state and work. Orienting individual conducts, however, became the task of almost sacred
institutions that coordinated the society, principally in relation to family, school and
diverse branches of medicine. In terms of the Foucaultian (1975) analysis, this
 INT J PSYCHOANAL 1427

implementation occurred by way of centralising surveillance devices, such as the tech-

niques of confession, examination and observation. Thus bloomed a series of normalising
punishments and gratifications, supported by the weight of the law and moral prestige,
that worked in harmony with the general consensus to mold the bodies and the subjec-
tivities in the direction pointed out by the existing political project. In consonance with this
life project, behaviours judged inadequate or indecent were severely reprimanded due to
their immorality, and punished juridically when their illegality was constituted.
Through these procedures of punishment, vigilance, and moral coercion, a very efficient
technology for wielding power over bodies was produced “inside” each subject: the
modern soul. This lay version of the Christian spirit inhabited the modern individual and
gave them an identity, this being an effect as much as an instrument in this socio-political
project that had the function of interiorising moral rules, identifying with them and, as a
consequence, constraining the actions and behaviours of each citizen. In accordance with
this perspective, thus, the soul becomes a potent machine constructed by the mechanisms
of power in place in the industrial society, the efficient functioning of which serves as
support for a profound and consensual submission to the proposals of that regime.
“Soul, the prison of the body”, synthesised Foucault, as he unpacked the complex mech-
anisms of this device in a fully secular era (1987, p. 32).
The tormentor in this culture, therefore, in accordance with the shared vision of several
authors whose work is fundamental in our understanding of this modern machine, was not
only the State nor the father, nor the various authority figures that commanded different
disciplinary institutions. This role was left primarily to each citizen or, more precisely, to the
soul of each subject in this paradoxically materialist society. Or still, by using a concept
dear to psychoanalysis, to the “super-ego” of each person (Freud, 2010). We are talking
about a tyrannical instance that inhabited the mysterious insides of the “civilised” individ-
ual in the form of “moral consciousness”. One of the main functions of this entity consisted
in exercising a rigid vigilance over the actions and the intentions of the ego in order to,
afterwards, judge and censor them with the intention of channelling the behaviours in
an ‘appropriate’ way. It is, therefore, a vital source of the modern malaise.
Always in accordance with psychoanalytic theory, the moral conscience would be an
extension – and an interiorisation – of the external authority in its most “sadistic”
nature. In this sense, for example, there would be no difference between doing evil and
having had the intention of doing it, because “nothing can be hidden from the super-
ego, not even thoughts”, as Freud had realised (2010, p. 95). In practical terms this
moral machinery was operating under the following mechanisms: the modern individuals
identified themselves with the cultural codes in vogue, believing them to be part of their
value system and, therefore, became anxious about the desires that diverted from these
norms. They felt, thus, guilty for not being as they should be, fearing punishment for
falling into the different categories that constituted abnormality (Vaz, 2016), crystallised
by the culturally instituted classifications, right or wrong, normal or pathologic.
Thus, in this culture of triumphant guilt, suffering was interpreted as a punishment with
a good dose of legality, since it was usually derived from some immorality committed by
the individual, who was to blame. Something comparable to sin, although in a con-
veniently lay and secularised version, with the role of omnipresent and cruel divinity
shifted to the moral essence of each person. Even taking into account the various critiques
and transgressions that certainly followed, during the last centuries this complex
1428 M. F. JORGE AND P. SIBILIA

machinery of domestication of the modern bodies and souls remained in force with con-
siderable success and in a consensual mode, supporting the tools invented to serve those
“civilised” subjectivities and the world project that was in ascension on a planetary scale.
Now, however, at the end of the second decade of the 21st century and in full process of
post-industrial globalisation, it seems undeniable that this paraphernalia no longer holds
the same efficacy it displayed some decades ago. The libertarian revolts that occurred in
the 1960s and 70s contributed to major rearrangements in the existing morality as well as
in the mechanisms of power, both of which started to enter into a crisis. In that historical
moment, young students and workers mobilised themselves in many countries over
Europe and America to protest against a “system” that was considered authoritarian
and oppressive, first of all because it aimed at standardisation and repression of individual
desires. The protests extended still “against the instrumental, and for lives devoted to
things of intrinsic value; against privilege, and for equality; and against the repression of
the body by reason, and for the fullness of sexuality”, as the above-mentioned author
Charles Taylor has clarified (2010, p. 558).
After these metamorphoses that struck at the heart of the modern project, the invest-
ments as well as the corporal sanctions were redefined in Western society. The docile
burial of the prohibited drives was losing sense, as was the everyday fabrication of
guilt, seen as enshrouded in old-fashioned decencies. The rules of the game changed,
various corsets burned in the public park, many railings were brought down, and the illeg-
ality of almost any prohibition was established. As Foucault himself had pinpointed in an
interview from 1975 (2008), power ceased to act primarily under the form of “control-
repression” – as occurred in the regimes with meticulous discipline – to give way to ambig-
uous “control-stimulation” that has not ceased to intensify exponentially to this day.
The networks of power started to deal with bodies and subjectivities using less rigid or
markedly aggressive strategies, opting instead for more subtle and “tenuous” strategies
(Foucault, 2008), albeit increasingly cunning and difficult to avoid or even detect. In
addition, an extremely sophisticated apparatus of information was developed, ubiquitous
and seductive, that little by little ended up integrating the whole of social texture in its
flexible and fluctuating meshes leaving practically nothing out of “control”. This mutation
was detected and explained, with high sagacity and even with certain premonition by
French philosopher Gilles Deleuze in his text of 1990 entitled “Postscript on the Societies
of Control” (1992).
Thus, having made the tacit obedience to norms and hierarchies as well as the respect
and fear of internalised authority at the core of subjectivity flexible, society is still far from
having extirpated all motives for suffering. Today unforeseen frustrations that do not
necessarily relate to the old recourse to repression, or to the insidious internalisation of
guilt, are flourishing. In a society that left behind the crude disciplinary strategies,
framed in the quiet taboos of protestant ethic and the notorious hypocrisy linked to the
bourgeois morals behind them, the malaise assumes challenging forms. These sufferings
already seem disconnected from the old limits associated with law that tutored and
demanded the fulfilment of heavy duties from modern citizens; instead of (or in addition
to) this, there are other grievances that are thriving. In a disturbing manner, these malaises
are usually derived from something that becomes a conquest of sorts in relation to the
normalising and oppressing ideal of the modern society: the virtually infinite possibilities
that are offered to the contemporary consumer.
 INT J PSYCHOANAL 1429

3. The liberated desire and the constant stimuli

After the radical criticisms and the numerous twists and turns that happened during the
1960s and 70s, capitalism was put on the spot and needed to reinvent itself. The response
did not take long: with its continuous thirst for domination and its unprecedented attempt
at inclusion, neoliberalism thus emerged, and managed to capture even the desiring
impulses of these rebel subjects, via the seducing tentacles of consumerism and the rever-
berations of the “society of spectacle” that still continue to bear fruit (Debord, 1997). The
situation became much more complicated, seeing that these “desiring” forces had been
conceived of only a few decades before – for example by authors such as Deleuze and
Guattari (1992) – as libertarian weapons in the fight against the coercive devices of
modern society.
Up to the mid-1970s, as a matter of fact, desire was seen as that reprimanded potency
that – in the best scenario – was projected outside of the areas of repression through inter-
stices that the system itself had possibly left ajar. Thus, this vital impulse could undo
certain distinct forces of the logic of capital in the industrial era, even though after the
fact it could result in regrets associated with guilt. However this dynamic has changed sig-
nificantly: the instrumental rationality – linked to the technology and the market – over-
took all bodies and subjectivities, even though its forms appear to be less rigid, having
moved away from the standardising idea that had guided it during 19th century and
also for a good part of the 20st. Therefore, renewed, it ended up inhabiting behaviours,
such as individual expectations and motivations, in unforeseen ways, through the acceler-
ated movement of a new “psychic, ideological and economic energy” (Berardi, 2005; trans-
lator’s translation) that became merged under an omnipresent headline that dispenses
with any justification: the “entrepreneur spirit”.
The new regime of power that was configuring itself in the last decades, however, did
not only gobble up the desires, but also the growing profusion of gestures of resistance
and libertarian inventions. It put all these aspects of existence to work to produce and
give profit, provoking the reclamation of qualities that had been stifled – such as creativity,
autonomy, originality, authenticity and even a proud “abnormality” – which were being
transformed into curious and sometimes tyrannical “duties” at the service of diverse
markets. “Outside of economic enterprises, outside of productive work, outside of business
there seems to be no more desire, no more vitality”, synthesised Franco Berardi at the
beginning of the 21st century (2005, p. 35; translator’s translation). Thus, the entrepreneur-
ial spirit penetrated all institutions, including the molecular substrate of the subjectivities,
capitalising on the vital energies, leaving almost nothing beyond its control.
In their turn, duty and obedience, capable of organising modern societies with plenty of
efficiency until the mid-20th century, based on respect for the law and on the precepts of
disciplinary power, were losing their legitimacy as guides to individual conduct. The tempt-
ing stimuli for incessant fulfilment of personal desires, exhaustively represented by the three
great triggers of neoliberal ethics – the media, the market and technoscience – entered the
scene in the place of duty and obedience. Articulated in a frenetic alliance that intensified
from 1990s onwards, these three infiltrated everyday lives, and constantly remind us of
everything each one could be but is not; or could have but has not.
It is precisely this change in logic that Michel Foucault (2008) had alluded to in the inter-
view of 1975 mentioned above, when detecting the initial stages of a displacement from
1430 M. F. JORGE AND P. SIBILIA

the regime of power that operated by “control-repression” to another much more ambig-
uous and efficient modality that functions by “control-stimulation”. We are talking about a
growing incitement of unrestrained enjoyment and the expansion of the supposedly
unlimited potentialities of each one, which – even when they are not buying products
or services – are more associated with the figure of the consumer that that of the
citizen. This new regime of life needed to support itself with technologies that were
more ubiquitous and “friendly”, like the mobile devices hatched in the turn of the 20th
to 21st centuries. At its base, there is a very dynamic and extremely voracious capitalism
that some authors have entitled “late”, characterised by excess of production and the ver-
tiginous circulation of products, as well as by the interconnectivity in global networks of
communication and information that maintain the customers in a state of constant con-
nection and at the disposal of consumerist impulse.
As opposed to the modern citizens that were led to aspire towards certain “normality”
in the public as well as the private sphere, the current demands establish unprecedented
pressures that do not have the form of obligation or law, but of boundless desires. “To be
better than well”, for example, became a goal that was not only something to strive for but
also attainable, within the horizon of possibilities that spills over the uniformity of the
“normal” to promote the capacity to enhance (and enjoy) oneself constantly and infinitely.
This promise of “optimisation” that covers all aspects of individual existence presupposes
that even the hard limitations of the biological body could (and should be) overcome by
investing money and effort to avoid disease as well as old age and death (Sibilia, 2015).
In the end, if everything is possible, if we can have and deserve everything – as the
public discourse that has naturalised itself so shamelessly offers, radiating its contradictory
stimuli everywhere – then why not want, and even demand everything? While seeking to
achieve these feats, “the cult of performance” (Jorge, 2019) has also become generalised,
with all kinds of investments taking place through “free” initiative and being aimed at opti-
mising a given area. This is accompanied by frustration when the high parameters set by
expectations are not achieved, as well as by the stigmatisation of those who are disqua-
lified as failures when their mistakes become public.
The malaises that thrive in the present and that constitute the focus of this research,
however, should be observed as symptoms of these new maladjustments and as effects
of the historical transformations mentioned above. We are dealing with peculiar types
of anxiety that paradoxically intensify in a society supposedly devoted to well-being,
understood as the search for individual pleasure and the happiness resulting from
deserved self-actualisation. For this reason, these very contemporary forms of suffering
can only articulate themselves around other forces existing today, significantly different
from those that marked the tumultuous modern subjectivity with blood and fire, and
that motivated the creation of the Freudian concept of “civilisation’s discontents”.
It turns out that the displacements summed up above did not only result in the release
from the inhibitions of the past, but also ended up generating new restraints and unpre-
cedented modes of suffering. In order to cope with these typically contemporary dissatis-
factions, the solutions that present themselves are not merely reassuring but also
contribute to intensifying the problem. It is in this way that the dynamic of the stimulus,
which came to replace the repression, functions: the same apparatuses that serve the
propagation of the malaises are procured as strategies for remedying them and for obtain-
ing more pleasures in a constant (and lucrative) feedback loop. Overall, the subjects of the
 INT J PSYCHOANAL 1431

21st century let themselves be attracted by this range of “solutions” that do not cease to
renew themselves, such as the diverse options for consumption, (il)legal drugs, medi-
cations and other potentially “toxic” products (Rolnik, 1997). While this numbness may
result in certain immediate sensations of euphoria, it is usually also the source of new pro-
blems: the addiction of wanting everything and the lack of control over not being able to
achieve whatever we want.
Amongst these “magical” devices that pervade the contemporary markets with so
much success, those that constitute the focus of this article stand out: the digital technol-
ogies of communication and information – especially in their most recent mobile and por-
table version, epitomised by “smart phones” that include cameras, screens and a stable
connection to the networks. They attend to the avid desires of spectacularism in order
to obtain visibility and impact, along with providing the illusion of guaranteed
company. Therefore, although it is seductive and already extremely popular, the habit
of being connected has also become strenuous. One of the reasons is its complete lack
of limits when referring to the use of time and space, since they work – and make us
work – in a non-stop motion, at any time or place.
In this sense, contrary to what happened with the walls of the typically disciplinary
“institutions of confinement” (Foucault, 2008) – from the school to the factory and the
prison, via cinema, museum, home or even the psychoanalytic consulting room, spaces
marked by solid walls that clearly cut out time and space – it is worth emphasising that
the networks know no limits (Sibilia, 2012). This does not seem to be a minor detail,
seeing how quickly we have made ourselves “compatible” with the still new digital tech-
nologies, and also adopted certain habits and ways of life that these devises presuppose,
propose and stimulate. As a consequence, we lost our old “compatibility” with the ana-
logue tools that preceded them historically. Just as the walls were a crucial device in estab-
lishing limits, confining possibilities and repressing eccentricities, the networks are the
most adequate tool for promoting the unlimited stimulation.
For this reason, it is not surprising that many of the contemporary malaises refer exactly
to the growing incapacity to deal with this lack of limits that characterises contemporary
ways of life. If we want it all, it is supposedly because we can have it and deserve it; and,
therefore, we should want and have it all. Thus, instead of having to learn to deal with too
solid restrictions, which were the main – repressed – causes of discontent for subjects dis-
ciplined and caged in the modern era, the problematic has changed. Now, we mostly do
not suffer from being governed by duty and, as a result, it becomes necessary to bury the
want, placing this conflict at the centre of the human drama. The contemporary malaise
seems to be directly linked with this difficulty that implies self-governance in a culture
that cherishes unlimited pleasure. In this sense, the phenomenon increasingly themed
as “addiction to connection” seems to illustrate this paradox perfectly.
Before continuing down this path, it is worth remembering a curious point that has
interesting resonances. Technological advancements were characterised by Freud,
already in 1930, as one of the main factors of deception for the civilised man. Because,
although there had been clear advances and conquests due to experimentation with
and investment in technoscience, the then recently-secured disposition of space-time
and unprecedented power over nature did not entail that the subjects or the era attained
greater states of satisfaction, nor did it make them happier. Instead, according to Freud, it
only provided them with “cheap pleasures”, that ended up creating and renewing
1432 M. F. JORGE AND P. SIBILIA

problems, some more complex than the preceding ones. “If there had been no railway to
conquer distances, my child would never have left his native town and I should need no
telephone to hear his voice”, the author exemplified (2010, p. 46).

4. “Voluntary” and “pleasurable” dependency

Nearing the end of the second decade of the 21st century, in a sense we come across a
process of “servitude” that is more and more “voluntary”, picking up on Étienne de La
Boétie’s expression from his book Discourse on Voluntary Servitude published in 1576.
Although contemporary capitalism no longer seeks the obedience of its citizens to the
laws of normality through firmly set boundaries, individual freedom has fallen into
another trap. What is now stimulated is a type of dependency, as much physical as psycho-
logical, with a link to the diverse stimuli and “cheap pleasures” (or very expensive ones),
tirelessly renewed. In this game with no limits, satisfaction is impossible by definition
and self-control becomes an illusion to be constantly sought after.
All of this can be seen to be exemplified in, as well as intensified by, the use of devices
that connect to networks. Increasingly, the strategies used to gain users resort to anticipat-
ing the consumer’s desires. The offers of unlimited entertainment online, for example, are
monitored by algorithms capable of directing actions and creating new demands. Accord-
ing to Jonathan Crary (2014, p. 43), this is reflected in “the uninterrupted harshness of
monotonous stimulation in which a larger range of responsive capacities are frozen or
neutralized”. The author also highlights the subordinating and considerably paradoxical
effects of these strategies that are usually embraced freely, without any obligation: “we
choose to do what we are told to do; we allow the management of our bodies, our
ideas, our entertainment, and all our imaginary needs to be externally imposed” (2014,
p. 68).
It is not by chance that the term “addiction” is increasingly used to refer to our complex
relationship with the devices we are focusing on. What provokes the malaise is the
difficulty of limiting the amount of time spent online, as a voluntary and individual strategy
that usually fails. Far from being a prohibited activity for being immoral or illegal, the con-
nection is hyper-stimulated. However, it is recognised that its “excessive” use ends up jeo-
pardising other areas of life and affecting good performance by reducing productivity. Yet,
the malaise of the present can be said to stem from this very fall in prestige of law and
duty, and the related decline in perceived value of the self-control that used to be
embraced in service of a superior cause. This is an instance so far removed from the
rigours of the super-ego that it almost seems like its opposite. Instead of being caused
by self-censoring moral limits, now the drama stems from the lack of limits and the inca-
pacity for self-control.
The technologies of communication and information, as a matter of fact, seem to be
occupying the place that was previously relegated only to psychotropic substances, fol-
lowing the same principle of dependency. It is not rare to develop a daily devotion to
the small stimuli emitted by the digital apparatuses, with their accompanying social iso-
lation. The insatiable search for those pleasures is understood as an individual and
“free” will that needs ever-increasing doses to attain the desired effect, the satisfaction
of which is rarely appeased. It is fitting to refer to how Freud himself relied on intoxicants
in the attempt to resolve the symptoms of malaise in civilisation. Almost a century ago, he
 INT J PSYCHOANAL 1433

had made observations about the efficiency of narcotics, such as drugs and alcohol, in
their capacity to help in “the struggle for happiness” and “keeping misery at a distance”,
with the aim of taking away the pressures of reality and obtaining immediate pleasure,
sheltered in a gentle refuge far away from the external world. However, he was also
alert to the hazards of these practices, since these products are also responsible for the
loss of an immense amount of energy that could be invested in “improvement of the
human lot” (2010, p. 34).
To sum up, we are experiencing a passage from one malaise anchored in prohibition,
and obedience to norms and laws – reflected in the image of the citizen and in the auth-
ority of the psychoanalytic Super-ego – to a malaise forged in the excessively insubordi-
nate temptations of our own desires. This is, namely, the “pleasure principle”, in the
Freudian view. The role of contemporary capitalism in this re-definition is fundamental,
as is that of the mobile and digital networking technologies. The malaise of connection
projects itself especially in the image of the hastened consumers, dispersed and
anxious, whose engagement and resulting “voluntary servitude” is achieved, mainly,
through the saturation of pictorial, sensorial and cognitive stimuli. The alluring offers in
the market often turn out to be an entanglement of poor and superficial experiences
that are the effect of monotonous rewards and addictive or poorly reflected-upon beha-
viours. It is worth emphasising, once again, that all of this occurs by the “free choice”,
resulting from a craving for pleasure – and repugnance for any type of repression –
that has become morally legitimate in the last decades.
By way of illustration, researcher Gloria Mark from the Irvine University of California
compared the compulsive tendency to check emails and social networks to how slot
machines work. One looks at the mobile to obtain gratification. An expectation of obtain-
ing it is created, and as a result this process is repeated, obstinately, multiple times.
According to her studies, users turn to their phones between 80 to 110 times per day.
Mark also observed that when working on the computer we switch screens – and our
focus – every 47 seconds. The research also revealed that the professionals most inclined
to multitask – actually one of the most valued qualities of contemporary subjects – were
shown to be even more prone to mental dispersion. Difficulty maintaining focus was also
detected in those who slept only a few hours or had bad quality of sleep, something that
has become habitual to the contemporary ways of life.2
Therefore, one perceives that despite the insistent promise of access to unlimited
enjoyment, the all-too-human limits stubbornly make their appearance. According to
Berardi (2005), we can augment the period of exposure of the human organism to infor-
mation emanating from digital devices, or even accelerate the reaction time to the media
stimuli. However, experience cannot be intensified indefinitely. From this it follows that
the acceleration provokes a reduction of consciousness of the stimulus, together with
the loss of sensibility and perception. For this reason, the challenge under the new circum-
stances is immense: when the operations that sediment each experience do not take
place, they fail to detain the unbridled multiplication of the flows of consumerism and
information. Thoughtful meaning-making is pushed aside by the relentless excess of
stimulation that often revolves around emptiness and drowns in tediousness (Sibilia,
2012).

2
Available at: <https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2017/06/23/tecnologia/1498217993_075316.html>
1434 M. F. JORGE AND P. SIBILIA

A rather symptomatic example of these phenomena is given by the results of the survey
called Global Mobile Consumer Survey3, carried out by Deloitte in 2016 in 31 countries in
order to map consumer habits in relation to mobile technologies. Among the interviewees,
about 37% wake up during the night to check their phone for messages, while 28%
respond to the notifications during this sleepless stretch. In the case of Brazil, the
numbers are not very different: roughly one third of Brazilians stated that they interrupt
their sleep in order to interact with a device. Thus, it is not surprising that the time of
repose and rest is being threatened, as are the modern meanings attributed to the
notions of privacy, protected space and intimacy. While human life is adapting to the con-
tinuous flux of the market and of the networks of information, its workings are becoming
constant. We are available at any time of the day or night to participate in the processes of
global exchange and circulation. We may even hibernate, by reducing certain consuming
functions and maintaining ourselves in a state of alert and readiness, but it is already
impossible to disconnect completely, or to enter in a state of real repose (Crary, 2014).
In the same way, taking up again the lexicon of narcotics, a study carried out by the
University of Chicago in 2016 arrived at the following conclusion after observing the
routine of 250 young North Americans: “social networks are more addictive than sex
and cigarettes”.4 Moreover, according to the scientists at the University of Virginia, also
in the United States, and the University of British Columbia in Canada, one in every ten
people cannot resist the temptation to attend to messages or calls even during the
sexual act.5 The same research even concluded that 95% of the global population
check their smartphones during meetings, and 70% interrupt work activities to interact
with gadgets.
As Crary (2014, p. 40) has conveniently clarified: “The promotion and adoption of wire-
less technologies, and their annihilation of the singularity of place and event, is simply an
after-effect of new institutional requirements”. In addition, the use of these gadgets and
apparatuses has had an impact on the prevalent forms of sociability and is redefining indi-
vidual experience and perception, subduing them to the accelerated and intensified
rhythms, velocity and forms of consumption, as well as to new systems of continuous
control and submission. On the other hand, this absolute connection eliminates the
forms of sociability that are not directly related to personal interests, and as a result the
interactions in the public sphere become increasingly rare and empty, faced with “fantas-
matic digital insularity”, using Jonathan Crary’s expression. Thus, due to the unrestricted
variety of content available 24/7, “there will always be something online more informative,
surprising, funny, diverting, impressive than anything in one’s immediate actual circum-
stances” (2014, p. 68), although deception is also always imminent.
The media examples that can be cited to illustrate this phenomenon are many, for in
recent times the problem has become evident and has turned into a source of worry
for a good part of the population. It is clear, to sum up, that we are dealing with a new
kind of malaise which is highly symptomatic of the new subjectivities and sociabilities,
distant from those that suffered the duress and the imprisonment of the rigid disciplinary

3
Available at: <http://www.gazetadopovo.com.br/viver-bem/comportamento/acorda-de-madrugada-para-ver-o-celular-
voce-nao-esta-sozinho/>
4
Available at: <https://super.abril.com.br/blog/cienciamaluca/redes-sociais-viciam-mais-que-sexo-e-cigarro>
5
Available at: <https://vejasp.abril.com.br/blog/sexo-e-a-cidade/checar-o-celular-ate-na-hora-do-sexo-uma-em-cada-dez-
pessoas-mantem-esse-8220-caso-serio-8221-com-os-smartphones>
 INT J PSYCHOANAL 1435

confinements. In those enclosed spaces the conflict grew and restrained itself, facing vig-
ilance, prohibition and punishment. Anguish thus was an effect of an asphyxiated and
asphyxiating interiority, submissive to the rigour of imposed norms, desiring autonomous
and liberating self-expression but incapable of it. Conversely, today “one suffers from sat-
uration and mental dispersion, for the entire sensorial apparatus is occupied and the
cracks capable of catalysing the experience have been sealed off” (Sibilia, 2012, p. 88;
translator’s translation). The media consumer, thus, is used to a constant state of inatten-
tion: no longer oppressed or repressed but bored, according to the suggestions of Corea
and Lewkowicz in 2005. Still, it is curious that this unceasing search for entertainment ends
up generating a mix of boredom and anxiety, resulting in addictive dissatisfaction which,
by definition, is impossible to satiate.

5. The futile fight for auto-detox

Faced with this scenario of decreasing disciplinary controls, many challenges make them-
selves felt. Amongst them, and already by way of final remarks, it is worth mentioning the
diverse attempts at resistance conceived by contemporary subjects to relieve the insidious
sensation of malaise and in order to cope with the “addiction to connection”. In this sense,
the stimulus for auto-detox presents itself as a necessary, even glamorised, solution with
different levels of capitalised luxury for those who today seek to live in a “happier”,
“more balanced” and of course “more productive” way.
We are talking about a type of digital rehab, also known by the terms infodiet or digital
detox, that is usually as temporary as it is profitable and, in the end, efficiently inefficient.
This consists in promoting a mental and physical “hygiene”, by way of a series of resources
that aim to address diverse targets and pockets. These range from millionaire internments
in specific clinics, to periodical meetings in the style of therapies affiliated with a renewed
version of Alcoholics Anonymous. What is sought after in these cases is not freedom from
these technologies or condemnation of them, but alleviation of the most damaging side-
effects of their “excessive” use. The objective is to stimulate “conscious use” of these
devices in order to be able to dedicate time to other tasks.
These negotiations do not cease to be emblematic, seeing that, in order to reinforce
efficacy, they usually rely on the rhetoric of advertising that promises a definitive solution.
However, the lack of limits is inscribed in the dynamic of the networks, the central objec-
tive of the digital paraphernalia being the capturing of attention and creation of depen-
dency that makes any attempts at auto-control illusory in the long run. It is also
interesting to observe that this malaise, that is so current, does not lead to a search for
self-knowledge or to recreation of a state of consciousness that is “freer” from the webs
of power, or even to liberate from the entertainments subsidised by capital. These strat-
egies would have been specific to the modern era, in which the attempts at resisting
the oppressive grids often involved resorting to “internal voyages” – through introspective
dives or oneiric, artistic or even narcotic trips – such as renouncing citizenship at the peak
of triumphant nationalisms in favour of isolation in the wilds of nature, or of “voluntary
poverty” as was the paradigmatic case of Henry David Thoreau in 1845.6

6
Cf. Thoreau, H. Walden, 1954. “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only essential facts of life,
and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived”.
1436 M. F. JORGE AND P. SIBILIA

The entrepreneurial logic fused with today’s prevailing spectacle has thus managed to
absorb everything: including the resistances that are now transforming into all kinds of
niche markets, the demands of which capitalism also anticipated, and in fact generated.
In some cases, for example, it is supposed that each one could (and should) fight
against the effects of technological abuses without great effort or renouncement, even
without dispensing with smartphones or the networks. To achieve this, it would be
enough to merely download specific applications and to respond to their commands to
concentrate, relax or sleep. In other words, what is proposed is that one addiction is
traded in for another one under the seal of the same drug.
On the other hand, among the most noteworthy manoeuvres to stimulate unconnect-
edness, as well as other attempts at resistance, is the system of rewards and material
incentive – including monetary – to those that persist in their goals in a satisfactory
manner. The fact that a variety of projects of this type have proliferated in the last years
is significant, and these projects appear to be highly persuasive by introducing the logic
of the market as giving sense to the “sacrifices” that, until recently, would be refractory
to this sort of bargain. Now, in fact, they would not be endured if this compensation
did not exist. “It is of no use giving children rewards”, counselled Kant (1999, p. 76) in
his pedagogic treaty from the turn of the 18th century to the 19th, “this makes them
selfish, and gives rise to an indoles mercenaria”.
A considerably symptomatic example that would unabashedly contradict the advice
of the German philosopher is that of Susan Maushart. In 2010, together with her three
children this journalist from the United States embarked on a voluntary experience of
staying “off-line” for six months which served as material for the work entitled The
Winter of our Disconnect that would go on to have global repercussions. To convince
the children to accept embarking on this adventure, the mother admits to negotiating
monetary compensation for each one. “We are bad at giving orders. But we are won-
derful at giving options”, she declared when proudly revealing her strategy. “We ask our
children to cooperate”, she added, “We don’t tell them to. And when there is an objec-
tion, we negotiate”. Finally, the author concludes by affirming the following: “I have one
girlfriend who for many years paid her kids a weekly fee for brushing their teeth”, elu-
cidating next that “I myself once slipped my seven-year-old a twenty for agreeing to a
haircut” (Maushart, 2011, p. 30).
Evidently, Maushart was not worried about eventually developing a “mercenary char-
acter” in her offspring, as Kant had warned, perhaps because this characteristic was
definitely incorporated into the menu of contemporary subjectivities and sociabilities,
having lost its morally derogatory burden in order to become, conversely, a legitimate
or even valued attitude. Another example that corroborates this intuition originates
with the researchers from the Universities of Stanford and of New York, in the
United States, who recruited volunteers to carry out research about the effects of the
social network Facebook on the mental health of its users. For this purpose, the
researchers offered monetary rewards to some of the volunteers to disconnect from
the network for a month, with the aim of understanding the effects of abstinence
on their behaviours. In sum, the logic of contemporary capitalism, with its unlimited
stimulation, has become “natural”, to the point where even the attempts to escape
from its traps usually resort to the same tools and strategies that constitute the
cause of the malaise.
 INT J PSYCHOANAL 1437

Translations of summary

Cet article propose d’explorer la notion de « malaise de culture », ainsi définie par Sigmund Freud en
1930, en se concentrant sur les défis posés par l’utilisation « addictive » des technologies numériques
de la communication et de l’informatique. En utilisant la perspective généalogique, l’hypothèse
propose que, dans les dernières décennies, une grande transformation historique s’est produite,
influençant les subjectivités et les modes de souffrance. Les citoyens obéissants de la société indus-
trielle, étouffés par la rigueur de la loi, elle-même soumise à la « morale bourgeoise » ou l’« éthique
protestante », asphyxiés par des cloisons institutionnels rigides et par l’ankylose de la « cage de fer »
moderne, perdraient leur primauté. À leur place, se multiplient les consommateurs hyperstimulés et
égocentriques, gouvernés plus par le désir et la réalisation de soi que par le devoir et la culpabilité.
La connexion incessante aux réseaux informatiques, volontaire mais difficilement réglée par le self-
control, est un cas paradigmatique pour l’étude de tels changements.

Dieser Artikel regt dazu an, das “Unbehagen in der Kultur“ zu erforschen, wie es von Sigmund Freud
1930 definiert wurde und dabei den Schwerpunkt bei den Herausforderungen zu setzen, die aus der
„süchtig machenden“ Formen der Nutzung digitaler Kommunikation und Informationstechnologien
erwachsen. Aus genealogischer Sicht ergibt sich die Hypothese, dass in den letzten Jahrzehnten eine
große historische Umwälzung in Gang gesetzt wurde, von der Subjektivitäten und Arten des Leidens
beeinflusst werden. Die gehorsamen Bürger der Industriegesellschaft, die von der Unerbittlichkeit
des Gesetzes unter dem Einfluss „kleinbürgerlicher Moral“ oder „protestantischer Ethik“ unterdrückt
wurden – erstickt durch die massiven institutionellen Mauern und die Starrheit des modernen „eiser-
nen Käfigs“ – würden an Bedeutung verlieren. An deren Stelle treten immer mehr übermäßig stimu-
lierte und ichbezogene Konsumenten, die stärker von ihrem Begehren und dem Wunsch nach
Selbstverwirklichung gelenkt werden als von Pflicht- und Schuldgefühlen. Die ständige Verbindung
mit digitalen Netzwerken, die freiwillig ist, aber schwer (selbst) beherrscht werden kann, ist ein para-
digmatischer Fall zur Untersuchung dieser Veränderungen.

Questo articolo propone di esaminare il concetto di “disagio della civiltà”, secondo la definizione
freudiana del 1930, concentrandosi sulle sfide poste dalla dipendenza dall’uso della comunicazione
e delle tecnologie digitali. L’ipotesi principale, formulata utilizzando la prospettiva genealogica, è che
in questi ultimi decenni sia in corso una grande trasformazione storica il cui impatto interessa sia le
soggettività sia le modalità della sofferenza. I cittadini obbedienti tipici della società industriale,
repressi dal rigore della legge sotto l’egida della “moralità borghese” o dell’“etica protestante” e
oltre a ciò asfissiati dalle solide mura delle istituzioni e dalla rigidità della moderna “gabbia di
ferro”, starebbero passando in secondo piano. E quel che si trova al loro posto è una proliferazione
di consumatori iperstimolati e autocentrati, governati più dal desiderio e dall’autorealizzazione che
dal dovere e dalla colpa. La connessione perenne ai network digitali, volontaria per quanto difficile
da (auto)controllare, si presta come caso paradigmatico per lo studio di questi cambiamenti.

Este artículo se propone explorar la idea de “malestar en la cultura”, como la definió Sigmund Freud
en 1930, y se centra en los desafíos planteados por el uso “adictivo” de las tecnologías de la informa-
ción y la comunicación digitales. A partir de una perspectiva genealógica, se presenta la hipótesis de
que en las últimas décadas se está dando una gran transformación histórica, que afecta las subjeti-
vidades y los modos de sufrimiento. Los ciudadanos obedientes de la sociedad industrial, reprimidos
por el rigor de la ley bajo la “moralidad burguesa” o la “ética protestante”, y asfixiados por los sólidos
muros institucionales y por la rigidez de la “jaula de hierro” moderna, estarían perdiendo prominen-
cia. En su lugar, proliferan consumidores hiperestimulados y egocéntricos, gobernados más por el
deseo y la autorrealización que por el deber y la culpa. La conexión insistente a redes digitales,
voluntaria aunque difícil de (auto)controlar, es un caso paradigmático para el estudio de estos
cambios.

ORCID
Marianna Ferreira Jorge http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2896-5598
Paula Sibilia http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0480-9240
1438 M. F. JORGE AND P. SIBILIA

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