Heidegger’s cell phone – ubiquitous communication and existential distance

Abstract

ResuMO O celular é elemento identitário indispensável na sociedade contemporânea ou fator de alienação e de inautenticidade existencial? Partindo da análise heideggeriana da identidade humana em Ser e Tempo (primeira parte) e de uma revisão abrangente da literatura sobre comunicação móvel (segunda parte), procura-se, na terceira parte do texto rejeitar posições maniqueístas, tanto as que condenam o celular enquanto instrumento de alienação, quanto as que o saúdam como objecto crucial de desenvolvimento social e económico. No final, esboça-se uma ética do celular a partir do conceito de distância existencial. Palavras-chave: celular, Heidegger, identidade, autenticidade, comunicação ubíqua AbsTRAcT Is the cell phone an indispensable identitary element in the contemporary society or a factor of existential alienation and inauthenticity? Starting from the heideggerian analysis of human identity in Being and Time (first part) and from a wide-ranging literature review about mobile communication (second part), we try, in the third part of the text, to refuse Manichean positions, both the ones that condemns the cell phone as an alienation instrument, and the ones that greet them as a crucial object for the economic and social development. In the end, we outline an ethics of the cell phone from the conception of existential distance.

Coming to Terms with Technoscience: The Heideggerian Way

“…They proliferated to such an extent that the socio-economic environment has evolved into a global laboratory for producing and circulating bio-data on a massive scale. Not only in the sense that our global environment is pervaded by technical contrivances such as radios, earplugs and cell phones (Babich 2018;Fidalgo 2009) but also in the sense that virtually all societal settings have become "living laboratories" for experimental research. We are all research subjects now and our behavioural repertoires are monitored quite closely, including our click-behaviour as digital consumers.…”