Browsing Infinity: Devitalized States and the Use of Digital Technologies

Authors: Marina José Abud da Silva ; Marina Ferreira da Rosa Ribeiro

Translation done by Eduardo Jefferson de Oliveira, cmo.edu@gmail.com

Abstract: The advent of the Internet, the digitization of reality, and the incorporation of digital devices into our daily lives have proven to be extremely relevant phenomena for understanding contemporary forms of subjectivation. Psychoanalysis, by privileging a gaze on unconscious manifestations and on the constitution of the psyche, has much to contribute to this debate. In this paper, we will use André Green's psychoanalytic theoretical contributions on the clinic of emptiness as our theoretical basis, reflecting on the concepts of negative work and double-bind. Through this author, we aim to relate devitalized states to digital hyperconnectivity, using clinical vignettes to illustrate this connection. Finally, we aim to contribute to the debate on the psychic effects arising from the unrestrained use of digital devices, in order to highlight the complexity of the issue, acknowledging that we are simultaneously creators and creatures of virtuality.

Keywords: virtuality, contemporaneity, clinic of emptiness, negative work, double-limit, devitalization.

1. Introduction

It is well-known that communication has been a human necessity since the dawn of our species. Interestingly, the first mention of this term in Freud's work occurred in “Project for a Scientific Psychology” (1895[1950]/1996), in which Sigmund Freud discusses the communication of the initial helplessness experienced by the infant. On this occasion, he addresses the importance of the infant being able to communicate states of longing and distress to those who perform the function of caregiving, thus favoring a process of identification between mother and baby. Therefore, for Freud, communication lies at the origin of human psychic constitution.

However, the advent of the Internet and social networks has represented an accelerated modification in communicative processes - a paradigm shift in the contact between the subject and the world.

The emergence of the Internet as we know it today was conceived in the 1960s in the United States, under the name ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network). It was designed with the aim of establishing secret military communication for security and defense purposes during the Cold War, in which a technological race between the two conglomerates of countries was drawn, driving global scientific development. Gradually, ARPANET left the state sphere and entered more deeply into the academic sphere, with the first official email communication taking place in 1969 between two researchers from different American universities. However, for almost two decades, only scientific means had access to the network, and it was only in 1987 that commercial use was permitted. In 1991, the World Wide Web (WWW) emerged, expanding the boundaries previously imposed by simple message or file exchanges. With the WWW, a standard language for data circulation and traffic on the network was established, inaugurating the creation of a true virtual world.

Since then, the internet has entered the daily lives of our society, with the promise of a free, connected, and egalitarian world - at least in the virtual realm. The author and sociologist Manuel Castells, in his book “The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society” from 2003, points out that in the 1990s the Internet emerged as a flexible and decentralized communication system, initially based on values ​​of freedom, solidarity, and cooperation. However, these ideals changed with the entry of hackers and programmers. And the internet culture has only become increasingly complex.

Castells [1] (2003) recognizes the revolutionary nature of the Internet: he compares it to the social impact caused by the invention of electricity. He refers to what we currently experience as the “Network Society”, describing this space of synchronous and real-time interactions at a distance. The author reflects on virtual relationships, pointing to the possibility of creating different online identities based on individual fantasies. However, he considers that experiences in the virtual field are not so different from real life: “It is an extension of life as it is, in all its dimensions and under all its modalities” (p.100).

Thus, it is clear how the Internet is a phenomenon of our time. It affects culture, art, sciences, business, among many fields that must be studied by their respective areas of knowledge. Here, we propose to contribute to psychoanalysis by reflecting on the psychic effects in the different uses of digital technologies.

It is interesting to note how the conception regarding the impact of technology has been evolving over the decades in the scientific realm. In the early 2000s, the connection between different people facilitated by digital means was seen as a sign of progress and hope - we perceived an infinite field of new possibilities to be with others. And it is undeniable that virtual connections have enabled the crossing of previously unimaginable boundaries. Just to give an example, today, as analysts, we attend to people who are thousands of miles away from us, and this distance does not prevent the construction of truly deep analytical work. Nevertheless, it is noticeable that different contemporary thinkers have been complicating their understandings of these digital conveniences, integrating various dimensions of the impact of virtual media on the human psyche.

To illustrate, we can follow the work of psychologist and researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sherry Turkle, one of the prominent figures in the study of human-technology relationships today. In the 1990s, she wrote with optimism and enthusiasm:

Computer screens are the new location for our fantasies, both erotic and intellectual. We are using life on computer screens to become comfortable with new ways of thinking about evolution, relationships, sexuality, politics, and identity (Turkle, 1995, p. 26).

However, over the course of 20 years, new understandings became possible, and in 2011, Sherry Turkle already addressed the subject with much more caution and concern: “We are confused about intimacy and loneliness” [2]. In her new work “Alone Together – Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other”, the author interviewed 450 participants and concluded that the use of technology affects our contact with others, diminishing the quality of interactions and the depth of human bonds. On one hand, physical boundaries have been practically overcome with digital technologies. On the other hand, the culture of hyperconnectivity seems to produce more individualized, lonely subjects with difficulties in the intersubjective field.

The term "hyperconnectivity" first appears in Castells' trilogy, specifically in the first volume titled "The Network Society" (1999). In this work, Castells explores the transformation of contemporary society due to the rise of information and communication technologies, emphasizing the role of hyperconnectivity as one of the main aspects of this transformation. He defines hyperconnectivity as the intensive interconnection between individuals, organizations, and technological devices, exploring the profound transformations it produces in different social and cultural structures. Specifically, when addressing hyperconnectivity between individuals and technology, it refers to a psychological availability in which the individual's mind remains in a state of constant openness to digital communications.

Additionally, the Brazilian journal of psychoanalysis released the volume "Hyperconnectivity and Exhaustion" [3] compiling psychoanalytic articles that relate the phenomenon of hyperconnectivity to contemporary forms of subjectivity. In the invitation letter signed by the editors of this journal, the following question is posed, which is considered highly relevant to current psychoanalysts:

On the side of hyperconnectivity, we have a whole range of phenomena: the infiltration of the virtual, the blurring of public-private boundaries, new forms of romantic relationships and work, which hinder movements of enjoyment, withdrawal, and contemplation. On the other hand, the psychic and social effects of exhaustion and the impossibility of finding a state of rest. In what ways are relationships, formations, and psyche altered by this new reality? What intrapsychic and intersubjective impacts can be considered in the subjective production of our time? (p. 20). [4]

As is traditional in psychoanalytic research, what instigates theoretical investigation is clinical practice. And with studies on virtuality and human relations, it could not be different. Increasingly, patients bring to the consulting room their virtual conversations and all the codes specific to this medium: they talk about the use of apps for every task, complain about the psychological suffering arising from excessive exposure to digital devices, and arrive at insights from content on social networks. In this sense, we cannot ignore the particularities of the virtual phenomenon in the psychic life of the subject, according to Castells (2003):

If you don't care about networks, networks will still care about you. For as long as you want to live in society, in this time and this place, you'll have to deal with the networked society. Because we live in the Internet Galaxy (p. 230).

However, what prevails socially is a tendency to underestimate the effects of digital technologies on our psyche. Over the past 20 years, we have entered a new grammar in terms of symbols and representations. Leite (2022) asserts that we have shifted from a traditional-analog to a contemporary-digital register, which directly affects the analytic field. In this sense, it is crucial to reflect on these new effects without denying or naturalizing them.

What is undeniable is that this is an object of study in which we, analysts, are also deeply immersed. It is not something we observe only in our analysands during sessions, from a certain comfortable distance. On the contrary, we also live and suffer the effects of this new grammar in our daily lives - which can make it even more difficult to identify the main issues. The therapy room itself has been taken over by digital technologies, and those who did not allow them in were out of step with external reality. Today, most of us schedule psychoanalysis sessions via digital apps. With the COVID-19 pandemic, those who did not adapt to online therapy struggled to maintain their analytic processes.

Kowacs (2018), in her article “Electronically Mediated Projective Identification: The Analyst and the Virtual Dialect”, discusses the presence of electronic devices in the post-digital setting and their impact on the analytic field, exploring the communicative quality in the use of these devices, treating them as a digital dialect to be decoded and incorporated by contemporary psychoanalysts. In this work, she revisits the idea that man creates the tool, and in turn, it recreates him - something already observed philosophically but which has been corroborated by neuroscience in studies correlating brain plasticity and the impacts of technology on brain functioning (McLuhan; Hallet & Small et al., cited in Kowacs, 2018).

In turn, Pitliuk (2020), in the article " Sustaining an online psychoanalytic work?"[5], discusses her experiences and reflections on the practice of remote analysis, emphasizing the importance of symbolic connection in the online therapeutic relationship. The author highlights the complexity of remote analyses, offering a counterpoint to simplistic views that suggest an exclusion of emotions and the body in this context. Regarding the setting, the author discusses how the elements of the environment provided by the analyst are used by the patient according to their possibilities of subjective accommodation, which in turn depend on their unique processes of subjectivation and the unfolding of the ongoing analytic process. In this sense, both concrete elements such as the waiting room, the couch, and the internet signal can serve as subjective accommodations, as well as subjective elements such as the analyst's gaze, face, and gestures. Therefore, the elements of remote analysis may or may not be sufficient for this sustenance, depending on how the patient can utilize this environment.

Thus, it is evident that technologies permeate our daily lives, and it does not seem that they will go away anytime soon, especially considering the undeniable benefits and conveniences they produce. Our reflection here aims to identify the complexity and psychic resonances of digital technologies in the psychic constitution of the contemporary subject, specifically within the analytic field.

However, it is essential to bear in mind that today the digital medium has become a vast and billionaire business in the capitalist world. Psychoanalyst and psychiatrist Pedro Leite made an important contribution in this regard in his work “Discontent in the Digital Civilization”[6] (2022), in which he articulates the billionaire business of big tech companies (the largest global technology companies) with the effects on the psychic life of the contemporary subject. To give an idea, in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the so-called big tech companies quartet - the four leading global technology companies: Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft - had record revenues. At the time, it was estimated that these companies were worth about $7.14 trillion, approximately one-third of the entire GDP of the United States. In other words, we are talking about a gigantic economic business. Leite (2020) states:

I intend to discuss further the promotion of psychic death by certain types of technology and capital that seek to engage their users for hours on end in online life, no matter the cost. For now, I believe it is sufficient to indicate that there is an economic logic and another of application design that seems to encourage 'TikTok depression.' From the standpoint of such cultural pressures on the subject, it really does not matter where their soul is, as long as we continue to open the smartphone, scroll through the content feed, produce all kinds of information that feed their algorithms, and consume the proposed products... (p. 74). [7]

Indeed, one cannot forget that different digital interfaces have been designed with a significant economic-capitalist interest in mind. The construction of the entire digital apparatus behind what we see on screens is meticulously orchestrated by leading professionals in the fields of engineering, marketing, IT, and even psychology, to produce increasingly intelligent and precise algorithms with one goal: to keep us in front of screens for as long as possible.

One of the prominent figures in Silicon Valley, data scientist and technology ethics expert Tristan Harris, resigned from Google due to objections regarding the practices he observed in his work. In 2020, he created the documentary “The Social Dilemma”, in which he exposes his profound understanding of the mechanisms employed by big tech companies to keep users connected virtually, influence their opinions and consumption decisions, and even manipulate election results. The documentary presents emblematic statements that provoke reflection: "We are the most valuable product of social networks", "Technology is dividing us into bubbles of reality", and also "The goal is to keep you engaged as much as possible" (The Social Dilemma, 2020) [8]. In a lecture from 2017, Harris makes the following statement:

Because it (technology) is not evolving randomly. There's a hidden goal driving the direction of all of the technology we make, and that goal is the race for our attention. Because every news site, TED, elections, politicians, games, even meditation apps have to compete for one thing, which is our attention. [9]

And the more attention we allocate to navigating digital platforms, the more we feed algorithms with information about who we are. The strategy is to keep the user active in front of screens for as long as possible, in order to obtain the most data about that individual. With a wide range of information, it's possible to present increasingly specific content tailored to the user's interests – which can lead to numerous consequences, from inducing the purchase of a product to influencing an opinion. If exposure to digital content has had such a profound impact on the thought processes of contemporary subjects, it becomes crucial to consider the psychological effects of interacting with these technologies in an analytical process. In this regard, Kellermann (2023) in "Between Like and Burnout – Psychoanalytic Reflections" [10] asserts:

it's possible to consider that no contemporary subject with internet access, especially digital natives, can exclude themselves from this hyperconnected matrix. It would be difficult to understand a 14-year-old patient who spends twelve hours on TikTok without considering that this individual is acting according to a particular logic that encompasses them. An economic logic that thrives on screen time and deploys significant financial resources to achieve this goal, and configured in this way, it will create psychological distress inherent to its fabric, altering the economy of attention. (p. 117). [11]

Thus, the present study aims to embrace the complexity of digital technology use in the contemporary world, as there are multiple facets to this phenomenon, and adopting an idealized or demonized perspective would overly simplify the issue. On one hand, it is essential to acknowledge the communicative expansion that digital technologies afford us. When used appropriately, they enable people to connect across long distances, facilitate social and political movements, provide much faster and more equitable access to information, and as far as we, psychoanalysts, are concerned, they enable the sustenance of analytic processes that would not be feasible otherwise. On the other hand, virtual hyperconnectivity can also lead to harmful consequences for our modes of bonding and the functioning of our psychic apparatus.

These specificities in the use of digital technologies are not random; they are closely related to paradigmatic cases in contemporary clinical practice. In other words, our relationship with the digital illustrates the psychic processes characteristic of the subject of our time. As a social tool created by us, the internet reflects who we are but also participates in the construction of our subjectivities.

Therefore, the aim of this article is to investigate the complexity of the virtuality phenomenon, seeking to understand the psychic effects of digital technologies on the contemporary subject. To do so, we will provide clinical vignettes that illustrate how virtual hyperconnectivity relates to experiences of emptiness, apathy, boredom, and hopelessness, correlating them with the contributions of author André Green regarding paradigmatic cases in contemporary clinical practice.

2. Endless Browsing: Empty Connections

It is essential to establish as a starting point that human psychic constitution and, therefore, our specific ways of suffering are not merely solutions of individual unconscious life. Indeed, they are deeply contaminated by the cultural broth of each society. Psychoanalysis, in its early days, arose from Freud's discomfort and curiosity in the face of hysterical symptoms. The psychic suffering he observed was closely linked to the social characteristics of the early 20th century. At that historical moment, rigid moral conduct prevailed, leading to a strong repression of sexuality (Freud, 1905/1969).

Since then, psychoanalysis has sought to understand the different psychic manifestations that emerge (and urge) in clinical practice. An attentive and active analyst in contemporary times notices that feelings of guilt, self-recriminations, and anxiety attacks—typical of classical neuroses—are giving way to the increasing emergence of new modalities of psychic suffering. What we observe is a growing number of cases characterized by significant emotional disconnection and devitalization: patients who experience a profound sense of existential emptiness, deep boredom, and constant apathy.

To illustrate what I intend to address here, I bring the account of my clinical experience with the analysand Venâncio. He arrives for the initial sessions always apathetic, saddened, depressed. I know he addresses his words to me, but I feel his distant gaze, as if he were facing the anguish of emptiness head-on. And emptiness is also present in the content of the sessions: it seems difficult for him to speak—and impossible to associate freely. What predominates is a sequence of complaints about his constant, unjustified pain, as he claims he “had no reason to suffer.”

Gradually, I realize how lonely his life is. We met in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, which spread worldwide, causing fear and isolation. The sessions take place online, and even virtually, I feel I am the most significant presence in his life at that moment. Through projective identification, I am placed to face with him the anguish of emptiness.

He tells me about another presence that dominates his days: the use of digital applications. He talks about the times he orders food on iFood [12], shopping on Rappi [13], flirting on Instagram. But none of this seems to evoke a real feeling; they are used frantically in search of something that is never found. And the emptiness returns once again.

The image of a hypermarket comes to my mind. The light is white, cold, and the environment is sterilized—clean and sterile. I notice Venâncio looking at a gigantic shelf, with infinite products in every direction; he acts as if he were choosing a new fabric softener, but the surprise is that, in fact, all the packages are the same: there is no choice to be made.

This image triggers thoughts about Venâncio's experience with various applications—each for a different dimension of his being. For eating: iFood; for shopping: Amazon; for dating: Tinder; for making friends: Facebook... but in the end, all the thousands of options on each of these sites offered nothing truly new. The experience of hyperconnectivity today presents itself as a unique response to any demand: it is no longer necessary to search the world for something that corresponds to our desires; the smartphone promises that you will find everything you need in the palm of your hand. For Venâncio, there was nothing there to capture him: it was like choosing between millions of identical fabric softeners.

It is also interesting to note the specificity of the fabric softener object in my mental image, namely, a cleaning product whose purpose is to soften fabrics, eliminating any sensation of roughness or coarseness. This function seems similar to that promoted by the experience of virtuality: therein, we do not need to come into contact with the strangeness provoked by otherness. Every app design is created so that we can have a pleasantly smooth experience: the colors, the shapes, the language... everything is designed to generate the maximum predictability, constancy, and permanence for the user. Moreover, the algorithm ensures that we come into contact only with what engages us, that is, with what resembles our inner world, eliminating any roughness that a different other may provoke. In the field of digital applications, it is as if everything has been given a great fabric softener wash.

The sudden appearance of the hypermarket image in my mind can be designated as a reverie. Reverie is a concept developed by Wilfred Bion that stems from an attempt by the author to expand Freud's theory of dreams. In his work “Learning from Experience” (1962), Bion presents it as a receptive state of mind of the mother, capable of containing elements not psychically represented by the baby, enabling the dreaming of experience and, consequently, the construction of meanings. This same process can occur in the analytic relationship when an image erupts into the analyst's mind during the session, indicating unconscious communication between the pair.

Thus, the reverie in a session with Venâncio signifies the opening of a field and of hope amidst so much emptiness experienced during the sessions. If dreaming is still possible, perhaps we are not lost.

The sense of emptiness that predominates in Venâncio's analytic process harks back to Green's contributions regarding devitalized states, the negative, and the death drive and its deobjectifying function. Here, we aim to weave these concepts into the clinical case at hand.

The initial description of the vignette brings to mind what Green termed the clinic of emptiness, or the clinic of the negative. In it, the analyst and the analysand are enveloped in a terrifying atmosphere, in which both are confronted with the profound sense of meaninglessness in being alive. In these cases, a feeling of powerlessness prevails, as there is a sense that nothing will be able to revitalize that psyche again: it is as if the pair were shipwrecked at sea, with nowhere to place their feet, without sight of any solid ground, without boundaries, and thus, in complete abandonment. The analyst relying on free association may feel without resources to analyze, as the scant verbal contents are disjointed and interspersed with extensive silent pauses, which bear within them the representation of the psychic hole experienced by the analysand. In this regard, Green (1980/2001) asserts:

One may guess that the narrative style is relatively unassociative. When associations are produced, they coincide with a movement of discrete withdrawal, which makes one feel that everything is said as though it concerned the analysis of someone else not present at the session. The subject disconnects, becomes detached, so as not to be overcome by revivifying emotion, rather than reminiscence. When he gives way to it, naked despair shows itself. (p.190)

Complementary to the study of devitalized states and the clinic of the negative, Adriana Gradin, in her work “Withered Hearts - Boredom and Apathy in Psychoanalytic Clinic” [14], offers us a rich and useful account of these new modes of suffering based on boredom and apathy - feelings often referred to by Venâncio. According to the author (2020):

Boredom and apathy appear in current psychoanalytic clinic in a considerable manner and in the most diverse forms, such as boredom, absence of pleasure in living, indifference, lack of energy and desire, laziness to accomplish plans, and a sensation of anesthesia. These symptoms are experienced by an increasing number of young people, adults, and also children (...) [15]. (p. 23)

Gradin (2020) labels this symptomatology as the “symbolic desert”, precisely pointing to the arid characteristic of the clinic with these patients. Green (1988/2001) calls these conditions “anorexia of living” (p. 21), providing us with a clear image of a scenario in which life itself appears in a state of starvation.

In addition, Minerbo (2017) also provides us with an important contribution regarding the symptomatology of boredom. According to the author, it may be mistaken for a depressive condition, but in reality, it represents distinct affective experiences. In depression, the feeling is one of loss - the depressed individual is filled with sadness and dreams of recovering the lost object. However, the typical patient in the clinic of emptiness lives with absence, with the hole that nothing can fill or satisfy. In these cases, there is no dream at all: the bored individual lives a semblance of life (Minerbo, 2017).

In the article “The Analyst, Symbolization, and Absence in the Analytic Context” (Green, 1974/1986), the author refers to these clinical conditions marked by emptiness, pointing out the need for changes in classical psychoanalytic technique, especially regarding issues of the frame and management of countertransference. He addresses the “borderline states of analysability” (Green, 1974/1986), characterized by a lack of structuring and organization compared to neuroses or even psychoses. delving deeper into the theme of countertransference, the author uses the intriguing term “mummified object” to refer to the way the analyst feels when caught in the web of investments of these patients. The term “mummified” seemed to me to describe very well the prevailing sensation in sessions with Venâncio: the emptiness was so deep and profound that it felt like we were paralyzed, with no possibility of movement or transformation.

In this regard, Green (1974/1986) states that there is a demand not only for the emotional and empathetic capacities of the analyst but also for their mental functions, since those of the patient are out of action. Thus, reverie represented a beacon in the dark night in which we sailed because through the mental capacities of the analyst, it became possible to dream, and from that, to construct a psychic elaboration of the unconscious contents projected by Venâncio, a psychic capacity that perhaps he could not put into action at that moment. In this way, it is possible to promote some vitalization in the face of a predominantly devitalized state.

Aiming for an involved and vitalizing position of the analyst, Green (1974/1986) proposes a change in the technique of analysis: instead of deductive technique, used with neurotic patients, in borderline states, an inductive technique is appropriate.

The term “induce” comes from the Latin inducĕre, which means to lead or bring into. It is formed by the combination of the prefix in (which indicates movement inward) and the verb ducere (which means to lead or conduct). Therefore, inducĕre is generally translated as introduce, initiate, or lead into.

Considering the etymology of the word, Green's choice of this term for designating the technique used with borderline patients seems highly precise. The inductive technique would, therefore, imply bringing something into the patient that the psychic capacity of the analyst could transform. This was the path and horizon aimed for in Venâncio's analytic process.

This inductive technique also implies the use of an intervention already proposed by Freud, towards the end of his work: the construction in analysis. In the work “Constructions in Analysis” (Freud, 1937/1975), the author addresses a possibility of the analyst's action that diverges from the classical interpretation, in which the analyst communicates elements absent from the history but that can be induced. This proposition by Freud is of great value for borderline cases, such as Venâncio's, in which silence and emptiness predominate in the sessions. Faced with so few contents verbally expressed, it is necessary for the analyst to be able to think and infer how the psychic constitution of this subject occurred. According to Green (1974/1986):

From this point of view the analyst does not only unveil a hidden meaning. He constructs a meaning which has never been created before the analytic relationship began (Viderman, 1970). I would say that the analyst forms an absent meaning (cf. chapter 15 below). Hope in analysis is founded on the notion of a potential meaning (Khan, 1978) which will allow the present meaning and the absent meaning to meet in the analytic object. (p.48)

In this sense, Green's work “Life Narcissism, Death Narcissism” (1983/2001) can be used as an induction of what may have occurred in Venâncio's psychic constitution. In it, Green addresses the complex of the dead mother, stating that the striking trait that characterizes current psychoanalytic processes is the issue of mourning. But not mourning for the real death of the mother, but rather mourning for the death of a mother who remains alive but is psychologically dead in the eyes of the child. This maternal imago would represent the transformation of a living object and a source of vitality into a distant, atonic, almost inanimate object (Green, 1980/2001). Although we know very little about Venâncio's past history, it is possible to infer a scenario in which his primary object was seen by him as dead, lifeless, causing a radical disconnection that resulted in an intense withdrawal of his libidinal investments from early childhood.

This hypothesis can be used because we have access to what is experienced in the current session. Green differentiates mourning into two types: black and white. Black mourning would be linked to depressions and therefore to manifestations of hatred and destructiveness. However, it would only be a consequence of white mourning, which in turn would be linked to states of emptiness, typical of the clinic of the negative, in which there was a loss at the narcissistic level (Green, 1980/2001). According to the author, the origin of this white mourning would be in a massive, radical, and temporary disinvestment, which left marks on the subject's unconscious in the form of “psychical holes” (Green, 1980/2001, p. 174).

Blank mourning is part of the series of blank states described by Green and Jean-Luc Donnet (1973), which includes negative hallucination, blank psychosis, blank mourning, and blank anxiety. The concept of "blank" originated from a session with a patient who, to describe his states of emptiness, used the English term "blank" (Green, 1979/2001). This term also refers to something that is expressionless, meaningless, and toneless. From this point, the author delves deeper into this terminology, using the expressions "blank dream" or "blank dream screen" (Green, 1979/2001). Blank anxiety, stemming from blank mourning, manifests in analysis as feelings of emptiness, libidinal disinvestment, the inability to associate, represent, or elaborate — similar to what is experienced in Venâncio's psychoanalytic process. According to Green (1979/2001):

The word blanc represents, then, the invisible (footnote: Or, more generally, the imperceptible, the insensible, and, ultimately, the unthinkable and the inconceivable) whereas its semantic opposite is the light of dawn, dissipating nocturnal anxieties but announcing the arrival of depressive feelings: 'Yet another day.'” (p.112)

Green (1980/2001) states that in the clinic of the negative, there was a sudden mourning for the mother who brutally and suddenly disinvested her son, causing a feeling of catastrophe: love was suddenly lost. The consequence is a trauma in the individual's narcissism, constituting an anticipated disillusionment that causes, in addition to the loss of love, a loss of meaning, since the baby cannot produce any thought to explain the loss that occurred. This analytical construction cannot be deduced from neurotic memories because it is something that the subject does not access due to the early nature of these events. However, inducing this history of psychic constitution in Venâncio's case allows us to lend our mental functions so that some meaning can be constructed in the face of such emptiness.

In this sense, the perspective adopted in this work is not that virtual hyperconnectivity is a founding element of void pathologies, since deeper roots are understood in the psychic constitution of negative narcissism. However, the unrestrained use of electronic devices incites devitalizing psychic processes, which in borderline cases, like Venâncio's, intensify an already ongoing process of psychic death.

Returning to Venâncio's clinical case, about two years after the first clinical vignette presented, the patient was gradually able to elaborate and say more about his suffering. There were extremely significant sessions in which he could talk more about his family relationships and past life history, share thoughts, and construct narratives. A meticulous work, which happened gradually, with highs and lows. But even with the difficulties, something was being sewn. Simultaneously, he started to relate to more people, began dating, and living with a woman. By identification, the girlfriend seemed to present symptoms of apathy and boredom like him. In one session, we had the following dialogue:

– She's not doing well. – Venâncio says (I hear that he himself is not doing well).

– What are you feeling?

– No no, I said she's not doing well, my girlfriend. – Venâncio “corrects” me.

– Curious, I had understood that you were not doing well. Perhaps both of you are more connected than it seems.

– Yeah, yeah. But then, she's been having trouble at work...

And Venâncio goes on to a long explanation about his girlfriend's work issues. It is a common feeling in sessions that often what I say does not have any impact, it is frequent that I feel as if I am not there. But we continue.

– What is complicated is that she spends the whole day from bed to couch, on her phone, playing video games. And I stay with her, right? This weekend I had a friend's birthday party, but she didn't want to go, so I didn't go either. I know what it's like to feel like this, I also feel like this sometimes, and it sucks. You spend the whole day on screens. It's like browsing endlessly.

– Is it inertia?

– Exactly, inertia. You keep scrolling, scrolling, and nothing makes sense. I wish we did more things, whatever it was, met people, went to the park or the cinema. It didn't have to be anything special...

– It gives me the feeling that nothing fills.

– Nothing fills, nothing, nothing. It's emptiness all the time.

– Did you want to go to your friend's birthday party?

– No. And that's the point. It's not that I wanted to, but I had a little energy that if I took advantage of it, I could go there. And then I would meet people, connect with them, and maybe come home feeling better.

– It seems like a spark, a flash of life that you need to take advantage of.

– Yeah, I trigger and need to take advantage of that. But she's not even managing to be interested in anything, so I start to sink too. The only thing she wants to do is play. Wakes up, turns on the video game, plays all day until dawn. Then feels bad as if she hadn't done anything all day.

– But is the video game another world? With a different story, where you can be other people, actually, characters?

– Actually, it's quite mechanical. Mechanical, mechanical, mechanical. You just keep thinking you need to do this and that, aim, shoot, run. It distracts your mind, you know, I get it. It's 10-minute match at most where you don't need to think about anything. You play until dawn, then feel like you've done nothing, and lie in bed feeling bad. Then you get anxious and can't sleep.

– It seems like there's no possibility of dreaming.

It's remarkable how Venâncio can now associate much more about what he lives and feels, even though he's partially projected onto his girlfriend's figure. His reports at this moment are not just about the mechanical actions he performs, as they were a few years ago; now he can recognize this mechanization - and be bothered by it. But some points of this clinical vignette deserve further detail, as they illustrate the entanglements of his suffering with digital technologies.

The first one concerns the intersections in the analytic contact experience between me and Venâncio. First, it is noticed that he talks about his girlfriend to say something about himself - it is perceptible that, when he speaks of her suffering, he is talking about the anguish he feels, finding in this mechanism a way to express himself. Another point has to do with my frequent sensation that what I say is not received by him, as if any intervention I make is not capable of reaching him and causing reverberations. The classic analytic proposal that Venâncio, as the analysand, speaks of himself, while I, as the analyst, listen and return interpretations, seems to me an extremely complex scenario - and rarely achieved in this analytic process. Sometimes he can talk about himself, talking about another. At other times, he acts as if I were not present, needing to deny, ignore, or attack everything that comes from outside: an analytical “alone together.” I perceive the problematic nature that arises in contact with another subject, in general terms, dealing with otherness becomes a great challenge. Regarding this countertransferential phenomenon, Green (1974/1986) states:

The analyst is in a situation of ‘object exclusion’. His attempts at interpretation are treated by the patient as his madness, which soon leads the analyst to decathect his patient and to a state of inertia characterized by an echo response. (p. 38)

When he uses another to speak of himself, I embark on his narrative. When he rebuffs my words with aggression, I survive the attacks and allow him to make this use of our relationship. Or when I feel my presence denied, I delicately seek to show that I am still there, as another subject who listens to him. A listening that breaks with the mechanical and endless repetition to which he is subjected, which creates space for, perhaps, a thought to emerge. Venâncio invites me to sail on his boat, and gradually, I find a possible seat for the otherness that I represent. In the dialogue mentioned above, surprisingly, at a certain point, he feels understood by me: “Exactly, inertia.” At that moment, I feel that I could truly understand him, and he felt understood in return. What a relief, we are now navigating in familiar waters: the analytic field has made itself present on the high seas.

The second point that deserves to be dissected here concerns the devitalized state in which Venâncio and his girlfriend find themselves. The routine of “bed to couch,” constantly using cell phones, TV, or video games, creates a scenario of deep boredom and anguish.

The feeling that “nothing fills” is constant and intriguing because it constitutes a paradox. While technological means advance daily, with new features, updates, increasingly sharp images, extremely immersive games, numerous social media posts, mass releases of movies and series, in other words, an absurd amount of content available to be consumed, none of this, in fact, becomes significant, none of this seems to substantially populate the psychic space.

Indeed, this filling to which Venâncio refers cannot be supplied with digital products, which only serve to entertain him. In fact, this lack of fulfillment refers to the psychic holes designated by Green in the clinic of the negative.

For Green, the work of the negative is a constituent part of normal psychic functioning. The image that the baby creates when the mother is not present, that is, their negative hallucination, remains in the background of the infant's psychic experience, operating as a founding cornerstone that, while always present, also makes space for the child to build new object investments. The exchange of instinctual investments between the baby and its primary object creates the framing structure of primary narcissism, which supports the possibility of internal space for the subject to create relationships with new objects. (Green, 1966-1967/2001).

However, the negative can take on a destabilizing face, bordering on the limits of the pathological, when there is a significant disinvestment, and consequently, a withdrawal of the Ego. According to Candi (2012):

The work of the negative both constitutes and threatens the psyche... when the threat prevails, we will have to confront the negative of the negative, which are the destructive aspects of the work of the negative, manifesting due to the absence or excessive presence of primary objects. [16] (p. 255)

Therefore, we can hypothesize that Venâncio is speaking of this negative of the negative, or the negativism of the work of the negative, which always brings the subject back to ground zero. For Green (1997), there is a process of erasure related to the internal representation of the negative, that is, it is possible to realize a representation of the absence of representation, which in terms of thought corresponds to negative hallucination, and in affective terms corresponds to emptiness, void, absence of meaning. When this empty space of absence of representation reaches proportions larger than tolerable for the subject, the sensation of “nothing fills” described by Venâncio prevails – and virtual stimuli serve only to occupy a temporary space in the individual's mind, but without any possibility of significant vitalization.

Indeed, none of these digital contents fills the void experienced by Venâncio, and by many others. Nevertheless, reports from people who increasingly feel dependent on the use of electronic devices are frequent. Many people today claim that, upon waking up, their first action of the day is to check their cellphone. In other words, in the first minutes of the day, in that moment of psychic twilight, between sleep and wakefulness, one is already in contact with an avalanche of digital content. It is impossible to disregard that this must have a significant effect on our psychic life.

And when we revisit Venâncio's clinical case, we can perceive in his speech the description of a mind frenetically populated with stimuli, constantly being fed by the content provided through digital devices. Venâncio and his girlfriend seem to be in a state of emptiness and devitalization, and as a way to alleviate anguish, they turn to video games to spend hours on end, a way of not thinking and not feeling. The anguish only reappears at bedtime when they realize that the day has passed and nothing significant has happened.

In this sense, I reflect on how disruptive an analysis session can be. Remaining for about an hour in contact with another subject. Without stimuli, without ads, without colorful lights, without moving to the next video. Just being there, speaking and listening, person to person. And this can happen in both virtual and in-person sessions: analysis becomes an exercise in humanity. Moreover, it is not about frenetic attention, pushing to the limit, trying to absorb as much as possible of the many stimuli present. An analytic process demands attention that is associative, free, that opens space and takes time. What seems to matter is simply being present. Having your attention truly focused on the experience of the session, with the continuous presence of another, constitutes something fundamental – and is increasingly rare in the contemporary scenario.

Returning to Venâncio's clinical case, some terms used by him in his speech catch attention (marked in italics in the dialogue). They relate to words employed to describe his psychic state: connecting or disconnecting with people, having energy to perform a task, triggering to become interested in the world, aiming and shooting in the experience of playing video games, endlessly browsing in search of something on social networks. All of them point to a description of himself as a machine, a human device. A passivated human device that merely receives pleasure stimuli, without the need to tolerate frustration that produces thoughts, and therefore, promotes subjectivation. It is like being a machine, which can be charged and functioning like a cellphone, or completely drained and lifeless. That connects like a plug that turns electricity on and off. That triggers, aims, and shoots like a weapon that destroys without noticing. That endlessly seeks for something it never finds. Instead of the human, we are faced with the human device.

I don't believe these expressions are merely linguistic matters, or even an effect of foreign influence on Brazilian culture – since many of these terms are imported from the English language. In fact, I believe they reflect the imagery construction that Venâncio unconsciously makes of himself. Like a machine, he is meant to perform actions without thinking and without feeling because when there is a possibility of that, anguish invades overwhelmingly. Spending the day from bed to couch, alternating between cellphone, video games, and TV, allows him to be constantly stimulated, but not in a creative way, rather, in a mechanical way. As he himself says, “you don't need to think about anything.” By nullifying thought, the intent is to nullify suffering, but it (re)produces it in many other ways. Until the early hours arrive and the encounter with emptiness becomes inevitable.

At this point, we can draw a relation with Clarice Lispector's chronicle “Fear of Eternity”[17] (1970/1994). In it, the writer recounts her “disturbing and dramatic encounter with eternity” when her sister gives her a gum for the first time, describing it as a “never-ending candy, lasts a lifetime.” The idea of never-ending immediately startled Clarice, who nonetheless decided to try the treat. Initially, she delighted in the sweet taste, but when that pleasure ended, her sister's response was “now chew it forever.” Clarice describes how she was frightened by this experience, by the discomfort of having in her mouth a “gray stretchy rubber that tasted like nothing.” She narrates her experience as follows: “I chewed, I chewed. But I felt artificial. In truth, I wasn't enjoying the taste. And the advantage of being an eternal candy filled me with a kind of fear, as one has when faced with the idea of eternity or infinity.” At the end of the chronicle, anguish completely overwhelms the narrator, who, unable to bear the experience any longer, lets the gum fall to the ground, pretending to her sister that it was accidental.

The experience Venâncio describes reminds us of this “gray and endless stretch” of the chewing gum. Video games are there, always available, for playing as many rounds as desired: they are infinite. But what may seem magnificent in the experience of eternity quickly reveals itself as an experience of extreme anguish and displeasure – the pleasurable taste of discovery fades away, and the inexhaustible characteristic of that stimulus only puts us in contact with the bottomless pit of emptiness. It's like falling in freefall and never reaching the ground, or it's like being in the sea without being able to touch the sand. The suppression of any limit, of any end to an experience, throws us directly into the anguish of emptiness and death.

In this sense, the excerpt from the clinical vignette and Clarice Lispector's chronicle lead us to Green's contributions regarding the death drive. The author suggests that while the life drive would have as its psychic representative the sexual function, the death drive would have as its psychic representative the self-destructive function (Green, 1984/1986). In this regard, the life drive would have the objectifying function, that is, it would be the psychic energy of investment and creation of objects, transforming external objects into internal psychic representatives. In contrast, the death drive would have the de-objectifying function, that is, it would be responsible for detachment, for disinvestment – which although necessary for the psychic constitution of the subject, its predominance can also provoke intense suffering. In these cases, disinvestment would be such that it would create true empty, negative spaces, which affectively provoke in the subject a sense of lack of meaning in being alive (Green, 1984/1986).

The death drive seems, thus, to operate both in Venâncio's experience of playing video games and in Clarice's experience of chewing gum. The sensation of an action that never exhausts itself, that is repeatedly the same, that stimulates but without affecting, leads these two subjects to confront a complete absence of meaning. The dialectical movement of investing and disinvesting objects is the dynamic balance of our mind: but this is not what happens in these experiences, which seem to fix subjects in infinite repetitions. These repetitions also remind us of Freud's descriptions in “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” (1920/2006), where the author proposes the concept of the death drive to explain the compulsion to repetition, illustrated by the nightmares of war neurotics and the spinning reel game. Thus, articulating with Green's propositions, we can hypothesize that disinvestment, inherent in the de-objectifying function of the death drive, when touching upon the deadly compulsion to repetition, becomes radicalized, and not only disinvests the object but also provokes disinvestment in the self. According to Cano (2015):

In this way, the deadly repetition compulsion, rather than repeating the unconscious desire—and therefore being related to the timelessness of the unconscious and the logic of hope—is, in fact, an anti-time. In this sense, present, past, and future are reduced to the moment of complete discharge of all tension, making any project impossible. [18] (p.17)

And this is exactly the consequence we perceive in Venâncio's clinical case: time is reduced to the present discharge provided by the use of digital technologies, while his Self suffers massive disinvestments.

Continuing the detailing of the vignette, my reaction was then to ask Venâncio, “But is the video game another world? With a different story, where you can be other people, actually characters?” When I posed these questions, I was seeking something we could grasp onto in hope. I imagined that perhaps there was a story in which he embodied a character and lived adventures in a fantasy world. Like when we read a book, and it airs our thoughts, by transporting us to a universe very different from our own – or perhaps more similar than we imagined. Was there something like that in Venâncio's experience of playing video games? However, his response precisely leads me to recognize the concreteness of his experience: “mechanical, mechanical, mechanical.” Based on this understanding, I can formulate the following final consideration: “It seems that there is no possibility of dreaming.” Therefore, what is actually configured is a hijacking of the capacity to think and feel.

Ogden (2009) states that the aim of an analysis is for the analytic dyad to, together, dream the dreams that the patient, alone, could not dream – and that had therefore been transformed into symptoms. Dreaming, through two minds, the dreams that could not be dreamt individually, promotes the resumption of the patient's psychic capacities, including the ability to continue transforming symptoms into dreams. In this way, I understand my analytical path and direction with Venâncio. Besides promoting a space where another type of attention can predominate, it can also be the space to dream together what has been buried in his hyperdigital connection.

We then arrive at the expression used by Venâncio, and the title of this article, browsing endless. The verb he coined, “browsing”[19], refers to the term “browser”. This is very similar to Venâncio's experience, who navigates for hours and hours on end through digital media in search of something that is never found, purposeless and endless, adrift in the ocean of networks. Thus, we perceive a paradox: the completely devitalized creative-exploratory desire has given way to endless browsing, from which nothing is found.

It is interesting to note that the content page of each digital media (called a feed) is designed to display an unlimited amount of content in each browsing session. However, the idea behind the design is to keep users engaged and offer a continuous experience, constantly updating the feed with new posts as the user “scrolls down.” That is, with a minimal swipe of the index finger, you can access a gigantic amount of digital content, always fresh and updated, causing the sensation that there will always be something new to consume. In this way, a kind of digital hypnosis is created that generates a state of alienation from oneself, from others, and from the world.

Recently, apps have adopted the autoplay system, where one video automatically follows the next, even if the user doesn't actively select it. This was programmed precisely to capture the user's attention even more without them needing to take any action. Therefore, this system encourages individuals to spend more time on the platform, keeping them in passive contact with the content. We have, therefore, a process of subject passivation. Everything is designed to create a highly stimulating, pleasurable, fast-paced, and simultaneously endless experience. In this regard, Leite (2022) states:

I believe that [social media] were designed precisely for this purpose—to engage our attention for as long as possible, resorting to the most primitive mechanisms of mental functioning to deliver their results. Scrolling from post to post can be a narcotic experience, precisely because it hijacks the psychic apparatus around the pleasure principle and its narcissistic projections. And it is here that we observe the reality principle yielding. [20] (p.97)

And this narcotic experience, referred to by Leite, resembles that experienced by Venâncio. A desire to spend the whole day in front of electronic devices, finding pleasure in every victorious round of a video game, in every like on an Instagram photo, or in every joke in TikTok videos. An ephemeral pleasure, based solely on satisfaction via the pleasure principle – which in digital media, has little to do with the reality principle. If frustration persists, just start a new game round, swipe the screen to see a new image, hit play on a new video. If thinking requires tolerance of frustration, social media favors non-thinking, the passivated satisfaction of the pleasure principle. Thus, it's possible to avoid contact with reality and with others, in a narcotization of life. It's no wonder that the feeling of anguish only reappears in the darkness of the early hours – when there's no more blue light to hijack one's psychic apparatus.

3. Conclusion

Our interactions with digital technologies are so intrinsic to our contemporary lives that we often no longer perceive the impact of this usage on our subjectivity. However, as tools created by us, digital technologies reflect our human constitution, being developed to try to address precisely what we lack as individuals, aiming to minimize our sufferings and limitations as much as possible. If we demand food, a specialized app for fast and uncomplicated deliveries is created. If we demand relationships, an app is created to facilitate romantic encounters. If we demand pleasure, a specialized app is created to disseminate short videos that entertain us endlessly.

However, these promises of facilitating everyday life can be a double-edged sword when it comes to experiences of hyperconnectivity, illustrated by the clinical vignettes presented in this chapter. In these experiences, we perceive a narcotizing and passivating effect, aimed at avoiding the formation of thoughts and emotional contact. As a consequence, clinical reports of emptiness, hopelessness, and a lack of meaning in being alive arise, as in the face of any anguish, the hypnotizing experience of digital (dis)connection is chosen over a connection with oneself and with others.

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Notes

[1] T.N.: All the quotations from Castells have been rendered by the translator.

[2] T.N.: translator’s rendition.

[3]  T.N.: Original title in Portuguese: Hiperconectividade e Exaustão.

[4] T.N.: translator’s rendition.

[5] T.N.: Original title in Portuguese: Sustentar uma clínica psicanalítica em-linha (online)?

[6] T.N.: Original title in Portuguese: O Mal-Estar na Civilização Digital.

[7] T.N.: translator’s rendition.

[8] T.N.: All the quotations from the documentary have been rendered by the translator.

[9] T.N.: transcription from: www.ted.com/talks/tristan_harris_how_a_handful_of_tech_companies_control_billions_of_minds_every_day/transcript

[10] T.N.: Original title in Portuguese: Entre o like e o burnout – reflexões psicanalíticas.

[11] T.N.: translator’s rendition.

[12] T.N.: iFood is a Brazilian online food ordering and food delivery platform.

[13] T.N.: Rappi is a Latin American on-demand delivery app.

[14] T.N.: translator’s rendition.

[15] T.N.: translator’s rendition.

[16] T.N.: translator’s rendition.

[17] T.N.: The title of the book, as well as the quotations, have been rendered by the translator.

[18] T.N.: translator’s rendition.

[19] T.N.: In Portuguese, the software used to navigate the internet is called a "navegador" (browser), and thus the verb is "navegar" (to browse). Venâncio resorted to a neologism derived from the English verb "to browse."

[20] T.N.: translator’s rendition.