L’image, angle mort des politiques de santé

Abstract

ContextThe use of information and communication technologies (ICT) seems to be correlated with health problems. Health policies continue to ignore this relationship, particularly with regards to adults. The increasing and invasive flow of images through screens is described by the author as an iconodictatorship leading to permanent, perverse, and sub-traumatic hyperstimulations. This seems to overload the psyche's containing and protective capacities while making the subject suffer in a way that is often undetected by public-health markers. All of this is linked to a new social norm, built in an unprecedented way by the hybridization of humans and machines (artificial intelligence). ObjectiveFocused on the concept of the image as the primary medium of intervention on representations, or even non-representations, this work aims to revisit and articulate a series of theories from a transdisciplinary perspective. These theories can, in turn, help decipher the mechanisms and effects of the digital image on individuals, defending the hypothesis that the digital subject is exposed, in the current digital ecosystem, to psychopathological consequences which require adapted health policies. MethodUsing a qualitative approach, the author calls upon theoretical concepts from various fields: psychoanalysis (scopic drive, visual envelope of the ego, trauma, acting out, and perversion), epidemiology (depression, anxiety, and risk of suicide linked to smartphone and Internet use), visual studies (postimage), neuroscience (vision, digital reading, and attention). The concepts studied are articulated with the unconscious of the digital subject. ResultsThe theoretical perspectives studied here tend to confirm the hypothesis concerning the damaging effects of digital hyperstimulation via images. Twenge (2017), in particular, underscores the tsunami of psychiatric disorders caused by the use of smartphones among the adolescent population. The work emphasizes several key issues including: the pre-eminence of vision on other sensory modalities; the decrease in attentional abilities and in reading activities that call upon critical cognitive capacities; the tendency towards subject-object hybridization; the effects of deep learning on the notion of representation; algorithms’ effects on subjectivity; the visual foundation of the unconscious; the potential disturbances of the protective shield and of the psychic screens by an excessive stimulation produced by digital screens; and the development of addictive behaviors. ConclusionsThe ubiquitous ego seems at risk of desubjectivation; and the activated repetition compulsions suggest that infra-traumas, which are not identified as such by health authorities, are at work. Since representations have become programmable through incessant interactions with ICT, we must also address the construction of a techno-social unconscious and its effects on the balance of societies. Images thus seem responsible for a permanent parasitism of the individual's foundations and risk generating mutations in the subject that cannot be apprehended solely according to the traditional psychoanalytic perspective. The introduction of health policies focused specifically on the use of images is impeded by various factors. Transdisciplinary research programs, information campaigns, and educational actions are proposed as concrete responses to the digital tsunami.