EC Psychology and Psychiatry

The revolution of hyperconnected society seems to have contributed to the birth of a new type of human being: “Homo Digitans”, a citizen of modernity perpetually bent on the smartphone display and absorbed by the continuous novelties proposed by the Net. Influenced by the digital world, this new type of citizen has acquired new ways of relating both affectively and sexually. The smartphone gives us the possibility to have the Other between thumb and index finger so that our relationships are characterized by immediacy; the fantasy of owning the Other and knowing it in its totality has to do with a dimension of power and not of relationship. To summarize, the virtual connects allows the connection, but the risk is not to realize that we can slip into flattening, into alienation, in the moment when our life online becomes fulfilling and becomes a replacement for the real one. The article introduces also other two neologisms: the “Digital Pleasure” and the “Digitans Couples”.

Keywords: sexting, couples, dating apps, sexuality, social network, cyber-relationships

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