The Lack of Consciousness of the Presence of the Other in Contemporary Society in the Era of Mass Digitalization

This study discusses how the substantial development of technology, especially of social media platforms, in the past decades has altered the conditions that determine human relationships radically. It provides an overview of how emerging technologies have affected interpersonal human relationships by creating a new environment in which communication takes place, which could be exclusively virtual in the future. Then, it touches on the Levinasian theory regarding the self and its constant consciousness of the Other and aims to explore how Levinas’s theory relates to modern society. It highlights the process of how each person strives to find the Other during his/her existence but is often unable to do that and how, in this process, contact with the Other is essential. It is explained that Levinas stresses the importance of meeting with the Other but indicates that we often fail to do so and end up meeting with the Third, an unoriginal form of the Other. Lastly, it is hypothesized that the inability to find the Other in the modern world can be linked to the development of digitalization because new media are often responsible for creating distance in human relationships and, therefore, cannot be the sole medium of creating relationships with others as face-to-face communication and meeting the other are essential components of developing a meaningful relationship with them.