The Rise of Oedipus Tech: Life in the Shadow of the Digital Object

ABSTRACT

This article is an inquiry into the role of smartphones in shifting the dynamics of human relationships as we have traditionally known them. I reimagine the Oedipus Complex to account for the company we keep in the digital age – the smartphones that have become ubiquitous inhabitants of our interpersonal world. Specifically, I focus on triangular relational configurations that now include smart devices as the new “third,” the ever-present “digital objects” that serve as points at which two human beings meet. After providing two clinical illustrations, I conclude that we are increasingly headed toward an interpersonal age of digital objects that will serve to artificially connect people more than ever, and simultaneously distance people in terms of in-person human connection. I am proposing that these relational dynamics will ultimately serve to loosen the primal, instinctual affective ties that have served to bind human beings together since the beginning of time.

KEYWORDS:

• Smartphones
• relationships
• psychoanalysis
• Oedipus
• Lacan
• digital technology
• smart devices

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ I am using the pronouns used by Lacan.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dustin Kahoud

Dustin Kahoud, Psy.D., is a clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst and author of Sex, Drugs, and Creativity: Searching for Magic in a Disenchanted World with Danielle Knafo. He completed his psychoanalytic training at Adelphi University’s Derner Postgraduate Program and is currently Chair of the Meet the Author Committee of the Adelphi Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. He is adjunct professor and clinical supervisor in the psychology doctoral programs of Adelphi University and LIU Post, and maintains a private practice in Great Neck, New York.