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Digital Lives

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The Palgrave Handbook of Psychosocial Studies

Abstract

This chapter maps the field of psychosocial/psychoanalytic digital media studies. It begins with a discussion and review of early, critical scholarship on the internet and online culture that has foregrounded potentially detrimental aspects of technology. I then discuss work that has highlighted the beneficial and nurturing aspects of online culture. I subsequently outline different, intertwined dimensions of digital lives today and how they have been reflected on in scholarship. They concern sexualities and videogames. At the core of digital lives today and how they play out on social media, dating apps, games, and other digital devices and platforms are psychosocial relations through which questions of self-reflexivity, confidence, and value have become paramount. Platforms satisfy a desire for affective validation and containment. However, such potentials are also situated in a radically fantasmatic sphere and are always unstable. This chapter also outlines some of the differences between a psychosocial and a psychoanalytic approach to the digital.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Business, Law and Society, St. Mary’s University Twickenham, London, UK

    Jacob Johanssen

Authors
  1. Jacob Johanssen
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Correspondence to Jacob Johanssen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK

    Stephen Frosh

  2. Cass School of Education and Communities, University of East London, London, UK

    Marita Vyrgioti

  3. Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex, Colchester, UK

    Julie Walsh

Section Editor information

  1. Birkbeck College, University of London, London, UK

    Stephen Frosh

  2. Cass School of Education and Communities, University of East London, London, UK

    Marita Vyrgioti

  3. Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex, Colchester, UK

    Julie Walsh

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Johanssen, J. (2022). Digital Lives. In: Frosh, S., Vyrgioti, M., Walsh, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Psychosocial Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61510-9_3-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61510-9_3-1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-61510-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-61510-9

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