Attached to Technology: Exploring Identity and Human Relating in a Virtual and Corporeal World

Abstract

Technology seems to be everywhere and anywhere in our daily lives. We have devices that allow us to communicate and interact with our work, our social circles, and the world at all times. This article explores and reflects on our attachment to technology and its impact on how we identify and relate to ourselves and others given the advent of sensory-based interactions such as touch, face, and voice recognition. Through the lens of intrapsychic, interpersonal, and systemic processes, the author reflects on the implications of these developments for script theory. He seeks to question, describe, and better understand how these processes affect our sense of reality so that our discourse as a community of practitioners shifts to a curious and accounting process.

Keywords:

• Attachment
• script
• sensory-based technology
• digital identity
• refractive transactions
• intermediated strokes
• social media
• internet culture
• COVID
• transactional analysis

Disclosure statement

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ronen Stilman

Ronen Stilman, Provisional Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (psychotherapy), MSc (TA Psychotherapy), is a United Kingdom Council of Psychotherapy (UKCP) and Counseling & Psychotherapy in Scotland (COSCA) registered psychotherapist and supervisor who works with individuals, couples, and practitioners in his Edinburgh city center practice. Ronen is also a core tutor at Physis Scotland. He has a keen interest in humans and how they relate and identify, integrating his background in technology and organizational change. Ronen can be reached at 2 Cargilfield View, Edinburgh, EH4 6SY, Scotland, UK; email: [email protected]; website: www.ronenstilman.com.