Achieving a self-satisfied intimate life through computer technologies?

Nicola Liberati

pp. 233-247

in: Andrea Altobrando, Takuya Niikawa, Richard Stone (eds), The realizations of the self, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Abstract

This work aims to understand how a subject can be sentimentally and intimately self-realized by having a relationship with other people through computer technologies. We will analyze the relations binding together the subjects when their "presence" and "interactions" are digitally mediated thanks to a phenomenological analysis. In the first part, we will highlight the differences of using digital devices instead of having face-to-face meetings, especially in virtual worlds. In the second part, we will focus on how other digital devices differently mediate the relation between the subjects, and so we will show how some technologies like teledildo provide elements close to the ones we find in a face-to-face meeting while other technologies like virtual realities do not.