Hikikomori : vivre sans son propre corps. Des effets du virtuel dans le retrait social

Abstract

The Net can be interpreted as the last technical product through which imagery is overlapping reality : the relationship with the Net has led to some meaningful transformations in our way of living, thinking, forming emotional contacts with anyone. It can be assumed that, first of all, this change concerns younger generations and, in this logic, the social withdrawal can be seen as a symptom of contemporaneity, meaning that it seems to testify to the presence of a splitting between a virtual body and a real one, that affects us all. To fully understand what happened, it's necessary to refer to the narcissistic change in educational models, family systems, social contexts and the roles played by peer groups. Affective families have replaced the regulative ones; the lack of rules and shame on peers have replaced the guilt towards fathers. This has meant that many young people refuse to meet each one another in order to retire to an exclusively virtual world. In our contribution, we identify three ways in which these splittings between the virtual body and the imaginary one appears in social withdrawal: First, the sense of protection from the outside world, in relation to the shame resulting from social challenges, especially with regards to sexual intercourse or simply to its prefiguration. Second, the imaginary satisfaction, which offers the subject the opportunity to live an experience parallel to the real one. In this dimension, the risk of a depressive psychotic collapse greatly reduces as far as the imaginary construction holds up. Finally, the ethical indifference which entails a loss of the Super Ego, whereby the moral limits of imaginary action coincide with the possibilities offered by the technical tool. The use of violence is confined within the virtual world and does not receive a moral condemnation, so the Net becomes a sort of receptacle, similar to the Freudian Es where all the drives are expressed. Within the Net, the person living in social withdrawal without the proximity of a real body can’t reach that encounter with the other that is still capable of stimulating our empathy.