Image, existence and authenticity in the age of social media: an hermeneutical-phenomenological aproach

Abstract

Throughout this text, we will try to comprehend how Social Media can be understood as a set of digital platforms that are able to bias human understanding towards the creation of an “image of existence”. An “image” that, more than being subjected to its users will, is capable of creating on them a specific idea of self as well as of their worldview, an idea that is already technologically predetermined. Taking the phenomenological tradition as its fundamental thinking ground, in this article we will think about the hermeneutical dimension that is at stake in the creation of an “image of existence” such as the one that is empowered by Social Media platforms and mobile Apps. We will pay special attention to the phenomenological problems inherent to the impact that Social Media has on human interpretation and understanding of himself as well as of its world, while making them “inauthentic”.