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8. Nothing in Practice: Entanglements of Sartre’s Nothingness and Social Media Practice: Entanglements of Sartre’s Nothingness and Social Media Practice

Chapter of: Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Technology(pp. 189–214)

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Metadata
Title8. Nothing in Practice: Entanglements of Sartre’s Nothingness and Social Media Practice
SubtitleEntanglements of Sartre’s Nothingness and Social Media Practice
ContributorAnnie Kurz(author)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0421.08
Landing pagehttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0421/chapters/10.11647/obp.0421.08
Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
CopyrightAnnie Kurz
PublisherOpen Book Publishers
Published on2024-10-16
Long abstractAnnie Kurz’s chapter draws from a combination of postphenomenology and Sartrean phenomenology to analyse how social media technologies shape our subjectivity. Her focus is on how our self-understanding changes as a result of the ways we manifest ourselves online, and specifically in the profiles we (need to) make in order to become visible on social media platforms. She uses Sartre’s notion of “nothingness” to indicate that self-understanding always implies a relationship to something that one is not. Elaborating on this notion, she indicates that one particular form of not-self, namely one’s online presence, has become key in self-development due to the ubiquity of social media. To capture this dimension of social media use, she introduces the absence relation; a human-technology relation that is explanatory for how many individuals or professions rely on social media even when not directly using it. Recognizing this aspect of social media use enables us to question the extent to which many aspect of our (professional) lives should be reliant on manifesting oneself in an online environment.
Page rangepp. 189–214
Print length26 pages
LanguageEnglish (Original)
Contributors

Annie Kurz

(author)
https://orcid.org/0009-0001-4571-1434

Annie Kurz is an interdisciplinary artist and designer and a lecturer in design and media theory. Currently she is a doctoral researcher at the University of Art and Design Offenbach am Main, Frankfurt (Hessen State University of Art and Design). During her stay in New York City, her art and research interests into digital technologies gravitated towards utilizing methodologies developed by Don Ihde and postphenomenology, which she considers best equipped to understand situated knowledge of designers. Her recent work, forthcoming book and doctoral thesis are preoccupied with the so-called phenomenon of ‘digital detoxing’ and apps related to the practice.

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