{"id":12335,"date":"2021-01-07T14:39:50","date_gmt":"2021-01-07T14:39:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.cervantes.es\/londres\/?p=12335"},"modified":"2021-02-09T14:43:17","modified_gmt":"2021-02-09T14:43:17","slug":"the-corona-pandemic-has-isolated-most-individuals-in-their-private-realm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cervantes.es\/londres\/2021\/01\/07\/the-corona-pandemic-has-isolated-most-individuals-in-their-private-realm\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00abThe corona pandemic has isolated most individuals in their private realm\u00bb"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Manuel Arias Maldonado<\/a> is Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Malaga<\/a> (Spain). Maldonado has been a Fulbright scholar at the University of Berkeley and a visiting researcher in Munich and New York. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maldonado has published a book in Spain about the sentimentalisation of politics and a number of papers on the digitisation of social life. His latest books deal with the Anthropocene and the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maldonado takes part in this year’s edition of Night of Ideas<\/a>, at the debate Lonely Together<\/a> with Fay Bound Alberti, author of A Biography of Loneliness & Cultural Historian, from the University of York, and Cl\u00e9mentine Lalande, CEO of Once online dating app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThis year you take part in the In the Night of\nIdeas, what does it represent to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is an exciting opportunity to share my thoughs on the topic with the rest of the participants and the public. Tellingly, we will do it thanks to the same technology that will be subject to discussion. On the other hand, the very existence of a Night of Ideas is a tribute to the key role that ideas play in the human experience -as something that invites us to see the world in particular ways and incites us to change it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The\ntopic of your debate is Lonely Together. What are your thoughts on\nit?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Human\nbeings have been \u00ablonely together\u00bb for centuries. Even before the\ninvention of the print, some cultuvated people wrote to each others\nletters that crossed continents, thus helping them to alleviate their\nloneliness or isolation. As new communication technologies emerged,\nfrom the telephone to the radio, togetherness could comprise a\ngreater number of people. Yet mass communication did not allow\nindividuals to answer back – we just passively received messages from\nthe few who produced them. Digital technologies are different:\nindividual people can now connect to each other on a regular basis in\ndifferent ways, ranging from chats to video apps. Thus we can now\ncreate our own networks. The public space is thus fragmented, while\nour private lives acquire a multi-faceted quality. Does this increase\nloneliness? I am not sure. People still need the direct contact of\nothers and it seems to me that digital technologies just add a new\nlayer of sociality to our everyday lives. For instance, we can be in\ntouch more easily with those who live far from us \u2014 be them family\nor friends. And for those who are shy, writing can be easier than an\nin-person encounter. Social networks have problems of their own and\nthey must be discussed, but I would argue against the idea that\ngreater connectivity is a bad thing for the individual. Loneliness\nand togetherness stand in a difficult relation and this relates in\nturn to the tension between individuality and sociality in human\nbeings. Digital technologies can disrupt such relation, but they\ncannot put an end to that tension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How\ndo you feel about the use of digital networks during the current\nlockdown in the UK and other parts of the world?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncorona pandemic has isolated most individuals in their private realm\nand this in turn has shown the communicative potential of digital\ntechnologies. It may be argued that governments might have never been\nable to impose such strict lockdowns across the world without the\nexistence of digital networks, which have been very beneficial – they\nhave alleviated loneliness, facilitated the exchange of information,\nand provided entertainment. In sum, they have been a substitute for\nordinary life. Naturally, they have also allowed the continuation of\neconomic activity in many sectors, thus preventing a greater damage\nto virus-battered societies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can\nwe be emotionally connected in the digital world?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed.\nEmotional connection does not require in-person communication, as the\nentire history of the novel – not to mention the radio or television\n– comes to show. There are all kind of experiences in the digital\nworld: some are personally affecting, some are not. On the other\nhand, it would be necessary to define what do we mean by \u00abemotional\nconnection\u00bb. To which emotions are we refering to? Social\nnetworks can often elicit resentment, animosity or envy (let us think\nof the effect that the glittering images of the life of others as\nstaged in Instagram usually has on the observers). I am afraid that\nthis should also count as a kind of emotional connection. Yet if we\nreserve the term for a positive connection, associated to solidarity\nor love, well, we can feel that connection as well. Needless to say,\nwe may feel that something is missing – that the presence of others\nprovide something to communication that is unique and valuable. But\nthis is no reason to reject the particular type of affective\nexperiencies that digital networks can provide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Manuel Arias Maldonado is Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Malaga (Spain). Maldonado has been a Fulbright scholar at the University of Berkeley and a visiting researcher in Munich and New York. Maldonado has published a book in Spain about the sentimentalisation of politics and a number of papers on the digitisation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":269,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[1550],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cervantes.es\/londres\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cervantes.es\/londres\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cervantes.es\/londres\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cervantes.es\/londres\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/269"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cervantes.es\/londres\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12335"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cervantes.es\/londres\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12422,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cervantes.es\/londres\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12335\/revisions\/12422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cervantes.es\/londres\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cervantes.es\/londres\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cervantes.es\/londres\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}