Loneliness in Future Societies

Even today, we are witnessing how social relationships are turning into tradable data, and how emotional and caregiving labor is increasingly being replaced by new technologies. Loneliness is no longer merely an individual feeling, but is becoming the subject of calculation, control, and manipulation.

In authoritarian regimes, this logic radicalizes into an instrument of digital surveillance and repression that systematically renders solidarity and resistance impossible.

How are loneliness and disintegration structurally produced in future society?

How do technological infrastructures alter our needs and concepts of connectedness?

And how do they influence our ability to shape complex interpersonal relationships and cope with social disintegration and isolation?

The closing panel of the “Being Alone” programme focus brings together perspectives from various social and political contexts that can inspire and challenge one another as possible visions of the future.