Society of Dividuals : Virtualization of Existence

Human history is a history of individuals – of kings and queens, of leaders and thinkers, and of the many individuals who struggle, work hard and find their paths in life. It is also the history of individuation, understood as a continuous search for autonomy, self-affirmation and the achievement of personal goals. But today this process of individuation is coming to an end and morphing into its opposite: disindividuation. The individual is giving way to the progressive loss of individuality, while social life is turning us into a society of 'dividuals' – that is, beings who are becoming unaware of their uniqueness and are losing their sense of self.

The main driver of this process is technology. The more individuals rely on technological devices to fill the social void and mitigate loneliness, the more they are recognized not so much for themselves as for being the bearers of devices that contain all the information required for their identification: images, texts and the digital traces of earlier exchanges. Individuals increasingly renounce their privacy, sharing it with a device that becomes an integral part of themselves. Deprived of uniqueness, the dividual is a lonely being who no longer has the ability to relate effectively to others and to external reality. We move towards a future without hope, as we are immersed in the ever innovative flow of information on screens and content to survive the present, as if nothing mattered.

Carlo Bordoni is a sociologist and the author of Ethical Violence, Post-Society and, with Zygmunt Bauman, State of Crisis.