Social Media as an ontological threat: philosophical implications for human praxis

Abstract

Social media platforms have transcended their status as mere tools to become an almost obligatory necessity in contemporary life. This profound dependency makes them a particularly apt means to intensify the Heideggerian Dasein's state of fallenness. Social media embodies the purest expression of das Man: its algorithmic architecture, sustained by a craving for novelty (Neugier) and the incessant circulation of idle talk (Gerede), is designed to keep the individual immersed in the impersonality of the public sphere. Its ontological threat is twofold. On one hand, it nihilizes the Other, dissolving the authentic relationship of Mitsein and the Sartrean Gaze that constitute essential dimensions of one's own being. On the other hand, it operates as an «ontological container» where existence shifts from the surrounding world to the virtual space; the more one is within the network, the less one is in the world. The result is a progressive loss of ontological density that consolidates a self-absorbed, individualized mode of being, oriented towards external validation, thereby paving the way for the emergence of the «Tyranical Individual» and a state of collective isolation.