The New Social Disease: From High Tech Depersonalization to Survival of the Soul

Abstract

The utopian perspective suggests all technological advances are beneficial to humankind. Globally, environmentally, technological and social transformations abound and the dystopian view suggests we are all high tech wired detrimentally from familial to educational to societal contexts. Debatably, we are now traversing high tech landscapes which provide communication networks that reach unimaginable technological heights on the one hand but see us steeped in unfathomable depersonalized lows on other. To live in a world of incomparable natural beauty, which is fast becoming overpowered by unnatural super technologies engenders philosophical reflection, personal action and social interaction. Our book is written in response to the growing crisis of depersonalization of human relations. Depersonalization defines the extent to which human relationships have substituted face to face human interchange in preference for technologically mediated communication. We argue that the implications of this social development are profound and support this contention with the diverse and growing research base.