Digiphrenia: The Ethical and Behavioural Dissonance Arising from the Use of Digital Media and Technology

In modern society, we use mapping applications, such as Google Maps, on our mobile devices to enhance our navigational capabilities — a service that is now available to us wherever we may find ourselves. Our dependency on these services, to plan our daily lives, such as a metro or train journey, is absolute and unquestioning. However, the mapping application does not exactly represent what is actually on the ground; and occasionally it can be quite disconcerting to arrive at a train station and, upon scrutinising the schematic map, to discover the existence of a better route.

The train schematic map itself is an abstraction of information. Abstraction is an approach whereby less important details are discarded in order to emphasise the main features of something. This allows us to simplify otherwise complex information. The train schematic map, for instance, converts the real geography, the network of tunnels, tracks, and depots, into a neat representation of lines to allow commuters to comprehend the train network. This schematic map is transformed through a higher level of abstraction when it is digitised for the provision of the mapping service on our mobile devices.

Once information is digitised, further levels of abstraction are possible. For example, real-world cash, once digitised via an online bank account, can further metamorphose into in-game currency or points on platforms such as Facebook.

These abstractions that we experience through our reliance on technology and social media serve to further distort and distance us from the actual ground realities; navigation, for instance, no longer requires basic orienteering skills: the recognition of landmarks or an awareness of the topography. Ultimately, the more abstract the information becomes the more we are forced to interpret a burgeoning set of digital data points and systems that are detached from reality in order to form a single comprehensible narrative.

In his book Present Shock (2013), Douglas Rushkoff, an American professor and media theorist known for his work on contemporary society’s engagement with digital media, coined the term Digiphrenia to describe this phenomenon. He explains it as a mental state that we undergo when we try to divide ‘our attention between our digital extensions’, which results in our having to ‘sacrifice our connection to the truer present in which we are living.’¹ We experience this detachment from the ‘truer present’, for example, when we sacrifice our time and happiness by posting online for the benefit of followers and ‘likes’ on social media, rather than engaging in real-world activities with real friends.

Rushkoff also illustrates the moral implications of Digiphrenia using the example of military drone operators. These operators ‘sit behind computer terminals outfitted with joy-sticks, monitors, interactive maps, and other cockpit gear’², in locations far removed from where the drones are deployed with their potentially deadly cargo. Here, technological abstraction offers the opportunity to gain an advantage over the enemy. The drone operators themselves are also ‘disconnected from the human consequences and collateral damage’³ caused by their actions. Rushkoff was concerned that drone operators are able to abandon their terminals and get on with their daily lives, to go home to their families or to a favourite pastime, all within the same day of potentially unleashing death in a warzone. The effects of Digiphrenia, in this case the detachment from the casualties they may have inflicted, could result in long-term health complications.⁴

Technological abstraction, therefore, can influence how we behave in digital spaces where we interact with people whom we do not see. It can impede our ability to empathise with other humans; for example, in making crude comments on social media without understanding its repercussions, or when advocating one side of an ongoing conflict with posts and rebuttals, entrenching prejudice and driving a wedge against those holding opposing views, without actually understanding what is needed on the ground for resolution. This always-on, always-connected nature of online interactions results in Digiphrenia, affecting our perception of time, our ability to focus, and our empathy for others.

Rushkoff suggests that a way to lessen the effects of Digiphrenia is by being present in the moment and achieving equilibrium by engaging fully and consciously with one activity at a time and avoiding splitting attention between multiple digital streams.⁵ He further advocates focusing on human connections, prioritising real-world interactions and relationships over virtual ones.

Thus, although the pace of technological change and information overload may feel overwhelming and battling Digiphrenia may seem like a hopeless task, we can make a start by forming organic human relationships and being aware of the symptoms of Digiphrenia. Eventually, as a modern society, we will be able to make fair and informed choices and achieve a healthy state of mind amidst the cacophony of the digital realm.